If I Were A Boy
by TheCatalystXandTheHurricane
Summary: Stiles Stilinski spent most of her time sticking her nose where it didn't belong in the name of adventure, so it was really no surprise that she and Scott ended up in this mess. AU in which Stiles is a female with a hopeless crush on Lydia Martin, who hates her, and eventually a crush on Derek Hale, who also happens to hate her. Rated T because we're paranoid. Slllowwww burn.
1. Chapter 1

**_This story is a collaboration between TheCatalystX and Hurricane.'97_**

 ** _Disclaimer: Neither of us own Teen Wolf. If we did, a lot would be different... *Cough, cough* season 4_**

 ** _We would love to hear your thoughts :) There don't seem to be too many fem!Stiles stories running around this site, so hopefully you guys will enjoy this! (We personally see female Stiles as the actress Mae Whitman, especially in her role in The DUFF.)_**

 ** _The cover was created by JackieOh. To our benevolent artist: thank you, you beautiful land mermaid. This first chapter is dedicated to you! :)_**

 ** _Let us know what you think in a review please!_**

* * *

 **Preface:**

If I Were A Boy

1\. I would pee standing up. Think of the time that would save!

2\. My dad and I might have more in common.

3\. People wouldn't assume Scott and I are secretly in love.

4\. Scratch that last one, yes they would. People suck.

5\. I might have been fast enough to evade the police that night, thereby avoiding Scott getting bitten altogether.

6\. I might have been fast enough to evade the police that night, thereby taking Scott's place and getting bitten instead.

7\. I would probably be a lot more frustrated. Looking at you, testosterone.

8\. Lydia Martin might actually love me back. Still looking at you, testosterone.

9\. Nothing would change. It would all be the same.

10\. Everything would be different.

* * *

 **Chapter One:**

Sheriff dropped the mug in his hand and it landed on the desk with a loud crash. Hot, dark liquid spilled and flooded across all the files and documents he had laid out. He quickly tucked his phone between his ear and his shoulder. " _Crap_ —hold on."

"Sheriff?" The tinny voice of his deputy sounded hesitant.

"Yeah—hang on, I just spilled some coffee." He shook out a dripping paper in a vain attempt to salvage it. "It's fine, I'm just—let's be clear here. Did you say a body was found in the woods?"

"Well, sort of…"

"Sort of? What do you mean _sort of?"_ Sheriff removed the button down that he had layered over his white t-shirt and balled it up. He pressed it to the largest area of spilled coffee as he spoke. "Did you find a body or not?"

"Well—that's the thing. Two joggers stumbled across half of it."

Sheriff frowned. "Half of what?"

"Half of the body, sir."

He froze. For a long moment neither of them spoke. Once the Sheriff had composed himself, he was able to respond. "Were you able to get an ID?"

"There's not much to go off. Female, Jane Doe. Long dark hair. Probably in her twenties. She… She's naked. What kind of sick freak would—" The deputy's sentence trailed off, getting nastier and more pointed as it went on.

Sheriff sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Okay… okay, I want you to call the coroner—"

"Already did, sir. We're just waiting on you."

"I'm going to call in the state."

"Sir?"

"We aren't equipped to handle this on our own, Rachel. I don't want to make any mistakes here."

"Yes, sir."

Sheriff opened the drawer of his desk and grabbed his gun and his badge. Holstering his weapon, he told his deputy to expect him in about fifteen minutes. The mess on his desk would have to wait. He had a crime scene to handle.

He flicked the lights out and looked to the door. Something stood in the door of the hallway. A figure, darkened out except for the light that spilled in from the hall. His hand flew to his weapon and he immediately aimed it at the chest.

"BACK UP!" His bellow mixed with a shrill scream.

The figure flailed backwards in her haste to scramble away from the range of the gun. " _STOP!_ Dad! God, it's Stiles! Your daughter!"

Sheriff's heart nearly exploded and he panted heavily while his daughter still clung to the wall of the hallway for dear life. Strands of her dark wet hair stuck to her face and she let out a loud sigh of exasperation. "God, dad! The gun, put the freaking gun down!"

"Oh," He dropped his hands and quickly holstered his gun again. "Don't do that! How many times do we have to have this conversation?"

"What?" Stiles sputtered as she finally stepped away from the wall, her arms gesturing incredulously. "What _conversation_ , dad, there was no _conversation_ , you just pointed a gun in my face!"

"Which wouldn't have happened if you hadn't been looming there like—like Samara!"

"What, dad, The Ring? How do I look like Samara I don't even—" She touched the soft fabric of her robe which hung off her slender frame like a gown and closed her mouth. "Huh…"

Sheriff squeezed past her and she finally noticed that he seemed to be getting ready to leave.

"Whoa, where are you going now?" She asked, trailing after him and taking note of how hasty he was moving around the house. It was like a montage from a bad movie, her father popping across the hall from room to room without stopping. All that was missing was a Benny Hill theme to play over it. "What's going on?"

He came out of the bathroom with a stick of deodorant and proceeded to lift his shirt and apply it whilst simultaneously going into his bedroom to shove his feet into his boots without sitting.

"Hello?" Stiles persisted, but her father was lost deep in thought. His face was creased with concern and that only made her more anxious. " _Dad?"_ She said to the bathroom door as it shut in her face after he popped back inside.

Wryly, Stiles turned around to face the opposite wall of the hallway and gestured to it. "Should I use my invisibility to fight crime, or for evil?" She mused aloud, and the door of the bathroom opened again.

"I have to go. There's a crime scene that I need to go to."

"What?" Stiles trailed after her father. "Where?!"

He cast her a wary glance before he responded. "The Preserve." Stiles looked away thoughtfully and Sheriff put his finger up as if to silence her. "But! You better stay at home, are you listening to me young lady?"

Stiles laughed hollowly and waved him off. "Of course I'm going to stay at home! What, do you think I'm suicidal or something? That's the first thing that the girl in the scary movie would do, and do you know what happens to the girls in the scary movies? They get slaughtered. Tortured first, then ripped apart slowly, piece by gruesome piece. Serial killers. Rapists. Predators, all on the prowl—no, no sir, I am _not_ interested. Count me out. I'll be sitting in my room, playing video—" She broke off at the glare she received from her father. Clearing her throat, she corrected, "Sleeping. I'll be sleeping to get a full night's rest."

Sheriff sighed and looked at her tiredly. "I'm serious, Stiles. This isn't a joke."

Stiles put up her hands in surrender. "Who's joking? I was being serious. People are freaks. You think I wanna get kidnapped by some pedophile with a foot fetish? I need those for lacrosse. And, walking. And my future career in the NBA. What? I could do it! I'm quick! Wouldn't you be proud to father the first ever female—"

"Okay, alright, stop talking," Sheriff finally waved his hand to silence her. He grabbed his coat from the hanger by the door and revealed the crisp, cool night air. "Just go to bed, Stiles. I'll be home soon. I love you."

"I love—you… too…" She said to the door that shut in her face. Sighing, she dropped her hands from their defensive position and let them smack against her thighs. The house was quiet now. Empty.

Five minutes later, Stiles was bounding out the front door of the house and barely slowed enough to lock the door behind her. She was about to step away from the door when she thought of her earlier monologue about girls in horror movies getting killed because they did exactly the sort of stupid shit she's about to go do. She shook her head and turned to run for her jeep.

What's the worst that could happen? Her dad and basically the entire police force of California would be out there in the woods with them anyways. They won't _know_ , of course, but still… they'd only be a shout away.

 _Better take my taser, just for precaution._

* * *

Scott was dreaming.

Emphasis on the _was._ Past tense.

He was dreaming, until he was woken up by a whisper of ' _Scott!_ ' and scared shitless by the shadow of a woman standing over his bed, her clawed hand reaching out towards him.

" _AHHH!"_ He pushed the figure away, crawling away and falling on the other side of his bed. Just as he was about to run away screaming (his masculinity be damned) he stopped short when he heard a familiar voice cursing him to the gods.

"—and then let them use your scrawny bones as toothpicks, you puppy eyed sonofa—"

"Stiles?" Scott stared at the curled up form of his best friend lying on the floor.

He stumbled in the dark to turn on the lights in his room. He turned to look at Stiles, blinking to adjust his eyes to the sudden light.

Stiles was by now sitting cross legged, one hand on her nose and her eyes glaring at him. "You hit me!"

"What the hell are you doing here?" Scott could not think of a single reason for Stiles to be there so late at night. And... how did she even get inside the house? His Mom made him double check that all the doors and windows were closed before she left for her late shift.

Scott blinked at his friend and decided he didn't want to know.

"My nose really hurts, you know." Stiles got up from the floor, adjusting her hoodie.

" _Stiles_." Scott stressed.

"And why'd you scream like that anyway?" Stiles shoved her hands in her hoodie, the annoyance on her face replaced by amusement.

Scott flushed. "I thought you were a ghost!"

Stiles snorted.

"It was your fault anyway! Why were you standing over my bed in the dark like that? And why are you in my room this late?" Scott scooped up the blanket that had fallen down with him in his heroic attempt at running away.

"Oh, yeah!" Stiles exclaimed, taking out a flashlight from her back pocket and shining it under her face. "Put on some pants, Scott, cause we're going on an adventure!"

"What? No!" Cried Scott. "Dude, you know I planned to wake up early for lacrosse tomorrow."

"Forget lacrosse!" Stiles exclaimed which made Scott look at Stiles in surprise. He was tempted to look out the window and check the sky for flying pigs. "Dude, my Dad just left about thirty minutes ago. Dispatch called. They said that two joggers found a body in the woods."

"A body?" Scott repeated, shocked. "You mean like a—a _dead_ body?"

Stiles rolled her eyes. "No dumbass, a body of water." Sarcasm. So he wasn't dreaming. " _Yes_ , a dead body! They said they found a girl in her twenties. A Jane Doe."

"Wait. If they already found the dead body," Scott started thinking. "Then what are they looking for?"

Stiles blinked at him, hands fidgeting with the flashlight in her hands. "They're trying to find the other half, of course."

Scott nodded. "The other half of what?" He almost didn't want to know the answer.

"The other half of the dead body."

Scott took a deep breath. "And what does that have anything to do with you being in my room right now?"

Stiles grinned.

Scott grimaced. "No."

"Oh, yesss." Stiles nodded her head repeatedly, picking up clothes piled up on his chair and throwing them at Scott. "We are going to find the other half of the dead body!"

"No!" Scott exclaimed, spluttering when a sock hit him in the face. "Stiles, I'm not coming to find a dead body—"

" _Half_ of a dead body."

" _I'm not coming to find a dead body with you._ " Scott stated, firmly. "And nothing you say will convince me to come with you."

Stiles just stared at him for a moment, before she cracked her fingers and cleared her throat.

Ten minutes later, Scott was sulking in the passenger seat of Stiles' blue jeep, with Stiles vibrating with excitement in the driver's seat.

"This is a bad idea," Scott repeated for the thousandth time that night. "This is a really, really bad idea. Why do I let you talk me into these things!?"

Stiles pursed her lips defiantly. "Scotty, you've gotta open your mind a little!"

Scott balked and whirled on his friend in disbelief.

Oblivious, she continued. "Not everything is a danger! How are we ever going to learn anything for ourselves if we don't make some mistakes first?"

"So you're admitting that this is a mistake," Scott deduced, his finger in the air. Stiles scowled and turned to park the jeep under the cover of the trees at the edge of the Preserve.

She turned to her friend with a meaningful expression. "Trust me. This is a story you're going to want to tell to your grandkids fifty years from now."

"So that I can warn them not to be so stupid—" But his efforts were in vain, because Stiles rolled her eyes and promptly turned her back on her friend, getting out of the jeep.

Stiles is going to be totally honest when she admits there are risks to her not-so-thought-out-plan to delve deep into the woods in the middle of the night where a body was found mere hours ago.

But in approximately seven hours from now, this story was about to be the biggest news that happened to the town since… since _ever_. And right now, there's a very small window of time when she and Scott have the opportunity to become apart of this moment in Beacon Hills history!

What if they're _actually_ the ones to find the missing half of the body? Would it be gruesome? _Hell yeah!_ But personally, Stiles suspects it might be kind of cool. Scott is afraid, and that's rational, sane even—but what he _isn't_ considering is that if they find the other half of the body, that means they'll get to go on live television with the local news team and tell the world about their bravery. And _that_ means they'll get noticed in school, which directly increases their shot at popularity.

How many kids their age around here can say that? Not many. Exactly two, in fact, and Stiles would be damned if she'd let this opportunity pass them by.

Plus, it'll really make a kick ass story once it's all said and done.

"I thought we could start here," Stiles said in an effort to make it seem like there was some sort of plan she was following, for Scott's sake. She pointed the flashlight beam through the rain to indicate the direction she wanted to take and then purposefully guided him into a trail in the woods, and he pulled his hood up and followed reluctantly.

"Where are we going towards?" Scott asked.

Crap. She hadn't thought he'd ask that. Stiles wove a path through some trees as she said, "Uh… Well, that's a good question. If we're going to find the body we probably need to go pretty deep into the woods, right? I mean, let's face it, this wasn't a tree falling in the woods. This was a girl getting brutally murdered. There would be screams, right? It would be loud and messy and if I were the killer I'd want to keep her as far from the road as possible, to minimize the chance of her escape."

She turned back to look at Scott and hesitated when she caught sight of his pale, scandalized expression. Stiles cleared her throat and laughed, grabbing his elbow to pull him along. "Hey, Scott, we're doing our civic duty here! We're _helping_ this girl! She would want to be found, right? Her family is going to want her found. So let's go find her!"

Scott sighed. "Yeah, but why do _we_ have to find her? Isn't that the police's job?"

Stiles rolled her eyes. "Scott, _trust_ me. Okay? This is our chance at our big break!"

She knew that Scott wanted to add more, but then they started to climb a rather steep hill, and he started losing his breath. He took out his inhaler and gave it a shake. It was running on fumes—and he was already starting to wheeze from exertion. "But—what if…" He huffed. "What if something happens?"

"Something like what?" Stiles turned to wait on Scott at the top of the hill. He thanked her as she pulled him over the top and waited for him to finish his thought.

"Like what if we find the body and…" He sighed and took a deep breath. "And we don't have any cellphone service?"

Crap! She hadn't thought of that. "I don't know, we'll send up a smoke signal!"

"A _smoke_ signal?" Scott exclaimed, partly in amusement, partly in exasperation. "You watch too many movies!"

Stiles continued to lead him through the woods, and he continued to pepper her with _what-if_ questions. She did her best to either deflect or debunk each of them, but some of them were really catching her by surprise.

Much to Scott's dismay, Stiles suggested that they get to even higher ground. As she led him up another hill it became evident that Scott needed to take a break. He stopped to lean against a tree in the middle of the hill and shook his inhaler roughly before he took in a long breath. "Maybe… the severe asthmatic… should be the one to hold the flashlight, huh?"

Stiles grinned and went to scope out the view from the top of the hill. Off in the distance, a line of policemen combed the woods with flashlights in their hands. She cursed and dropped to the leaf-littered ground.

Scott collapsed next to her and frantically whispered, "We're not supposed to be out here! What do we do!?"

"Come on!"

She leapt up and scrambled over a root that jutted out of the ground, stumbling in the process. But even as her feet slid through the leaves and mud, she kept hurrying along, desperate to put some much needed distance between the police and themselves.

"Stiles!" Scott called. "Wait for me! _Stiles!_ "

Keeping low to the ground and an eye on the police, she frantically waved at him to hurry. He stumbled over the forest floor behind her and scrambled to keep up. She turned to wait for him and then did a double take when Scott was nowhere to be seen. She turned all around and almost called for him.

A dog's vicious bark scared the crap out of her and she threw herself back in shock, falling to the ground with a muted, _"Oof!"_

Her heart was in her throat and a flashlight was in her face as she turned over and scrambled back from the police dog that still tried to take a hunk out of her ankle. "Stay right there!" A police officer screamed as she flailed on the ground and put her hands up.

" _Hang on_ , hang on!" Sheriff called off, irritation clear in his voice. "This little delinquent belongs to me…"

Stiles' heart fell to her stomach and her mind immediately raced with excuses as she withdrew her hands from her face to peer up at the livid face of her father looming over her.

"H-Hey, Dad," She stuttered, her voice breaking with nerves. "How're ya doin?"

One of the female officers grabbed her by the arm and tugged her to her feet. She smiled awkwardly at her and backed up to lean against a tree, clutching at her chest where her heart was still racing. She was light headed from all the excitement.

"Stiles," The officer flatly greeted. "Why am I not surprised to see you out here?"

"Because you know I have a curious mind?" She lamely suggested, causing the officer to snort in derision.

Sheriff sighed and squinted at her in the dark. He looked soaked, evidence that he'd been out in the rain all night. "So do you listen into _all_ my calls, young lady?"

"No!" She paused at his unconvinced stare and scrunched her nose at him. "Well not the boring ones…"

He nodded knowingly and looked around. "And where's your usual partner in crime?"

"Who, Scott?" She scoffed dismissively and waved him off. "That stick in the mud is at home! He wanted to get a full night's rest before lacrosse and the first day back at school tomorrow."

Sheriff exchanged a skeptical glance with the female officer who still lingered nearby, nodding at her to indicate that she should go search for Scott despite Stiles' words.

Stiles stiffened and made a conscious effort not to look back in the direction she'd last seen Scott. "It's just me…" she emphasized. "In the woods _alone_."

The officer began to flash her light through the woods and calling for Scott. She prayed that her best friend had long ago high tailed it out of there and put enough distance to get back to the jeep.

The thought was comforting, so she grasped it tightly and inwardly insisted that he would be waiting at the jeep when she got back. And when her Dad no doubt escorted her _back_ to said jeep, they would just have to think of an excuse to why Scott was there.

She was already concocting a story in her mind as her Dad grabbed her around the shoulders and launched into a lecture about _invasion of privacy_ , leading her away.

* * *

He wasn't there. Scott wasn't at the jeep waiting, like she'd assumed he would be. She tried not to panic. She really tried.

He wasn't helpless without her! He was really smart, most of the time. No, _all_ of the time, that was mean to say. He's smart _all_ _of the time_. Mostly. He can find his way home!

He's fully prepared to handle navigating his way through the Preserve with his… limited knowledge of its layout and… no flashlight and… a potential dead body he didn't even want to see, oh god, it was all her fault!

Scott's going to get kidnapped by a freak with a foot fetish and it's all her fault!

She should call her dad. She should call her dad.

But no, Scott's probably fine. He's smart.

And alone, and asthmatic and lost in the middle of the woods in the rain at night where a murderer could be on the loose—

She picked up her phone to call her dad, but before she could hit her speed dial it began to ring. Stiles cried out in relief at Scott's name that flashed across the screen.

"Scott!" She exclaimed, worry causing her voice to break awkwardly. "What happened?"

"I'm _fine_ , I'm fine," He reassured her. "I'm fine. I'm at home. What about you? Are you okay? Is your dad mad?"

"He's—" Stiles broke off and thought it over. "Dad's not happy but he's used to me. Remember the time I hid in the back of his cruiser to follow him to a drug bust?"

"Yeah," Scott snorted knowingly. "Are you grounded?"

"He didn't say," She admitted. "But the outlook is good. The school year just started, I don't think he wants to ground me to the house just yet."

"That's good," Scott breathed. "Do you think he'll tell my mom?"

"No. Why?" Stiles frowned. "I told him you were home. He has no idea you were out there."

"Yeah," Scott sighed, though he sounded unconvinced. "Hey, listen…"

"What?" Stiles dreadfully encouraged.

"I'm basically okay, but something happened in the woods after you left."

" _What!?_ Tell me every detail!"

After Scott explained his story in second by second detail, there was a long pause as Stiles digested the information. "I missed all the good stuff," she lamented.

"Stiles!" Scott exclaimed with a snort. "Seriously? _That's_ what you take away?

"Okay, I'm sorry! It's just, a stampede of deer?"

"Yeah, I've never seen anything like it," He admitted. "Have you?"

"Well I know animals can sense like… danger." Stiles poorly explained. "Like if an earthquake is about to happen or a tornado is coming then they'll basically lose their minds before we even know it's coming."

"It was like that!" Scott exclaimed. "Something scared them."

"And what did you say attacked you?"

"It was—" Scott broke off in frustration. "It's hard to explain. It definitely wasn't human."

"Are you sure?" Stiles asked. "If it was human, we need to tell my Dad."

"No," Scott loudly persisted. "I swear! It wasn't a human. It was… it's hard to explain."

"You said that already!" Stiles told him in frustration.

"Well it is!"

"Well try."

"I don't know; it happened so fast! But I swear it wasn't human. It's like it pounced on me from above."

"Was it up in a tree?" She tried to reason.

"No, no," He said. "It was on a hill sort of? I don't know… It moved really fast though."

"You said you fell?" Stiles asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"Well maybe…" She trailed off with a sigh. Maybe he hit his head and misinterpreted the events from all his adrenaline.

"What?"

"No, nothing."

"What?"

"It was just another scared animal! I mean Scott, a _murder_ happened in the woods recently. Do you get that?"

"Yes!" Scott exclaimed. "I was attacked! Of _course_ I get that!"

"Well—I'm just saying, the animals could be—you know. Disrupted! Or disturbed, traumatized, whatever! And you even said that the deer seemed scared! That's what you said! So is it really such a leap to say that whatever attacked you was just another frightened animal?"

"It wasn't," He insisted. "It was watching me before it attacked."

"You said it happened fast though."

"It did! As soon as I noticed it, it came for me!"

"Okay, Scott—what do _you_ think it was?"

Scott paused and the line grew quiet. "This is gonna sound crazy," He warned. "But have you ever heard of a chupacabra?"

Stiles immediately erupted into laughter and Scott jumped to defend himself.

"Listen!" He exclaimed. "Listen to me, I was watching the discovery channel the other day, and—and this thing was like a dog, okay? It was like a huge dog, or—more like a wolf! But not like a wolf, because I've never heard of a wolf being so huge and it didn't have a whole lot of fur!"

" _Oh_ , or _maybe_ you were abducted by aliens!" Stiles sarcastically gasped. "Who knows how many times you were probed, Scott!"

"No!" Scott argued. "Stiles, I would remember something like that!"

"But actually, no you wouldn't," She countered.

There was a pause and Scott finally responded, his voice thick with confusion. "I wasn't probed, and I wasn't _abducted by aliens!"_

"Or were you?"

"Stiles!" He shouted. "Stop messing around! I'm really freaked out, okay! Something bit me! I'm bleeding, do you get that?"

"Chill!" She told him. "You're too worked up over this, use your inhaler."

"I CAN'T, I LOST IT!"

"…Did Bigfoot take it?"

Scott's voice went shrill with exasperation as he began to curse her out, and she erupted into laughter. As the reality of the situation began to set in and Scott overheard her laughing, his anger dissipated and he breathed out a grudging laugh. "You're an asshole," He told her, though she could hear the smile in his voice.

"Yeah, and lucky you, I'm _your_ asshole," She smirked. He sighed and they discussed his wound a little before agreeing to reconvene tomorrow morning. It was almost three o'clock, which meant they had to be up in five hours. Tomorrow would be interesting.


	2. Chapter 2

_**This story is a collaboration between TheCatalystX and Hurricane.'97**_

 _ **We henceforth disclaim all rights and ownership to any characters or familiar story elements that might be found in the following chapter. Which is a fancy way to say: Teen Wolf doesn't belong to us. Duh.**_

 _ **Enjoy! :)**_

* * *

 _"Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get." – Mark Twain_

* * *

 **Chapter Two:**

Some things, no matter how unfair, are just the facts of life. Buses, for example, are incredibly unreliable. They're never on time and you can almost always expect the person in the seat next to you to fart. Which is why Stiles got her driver's license the same day she turned sixteen.

Something that seems particularly unfair? The litany of double standards in the rules of attraction. When a cute guy watches a girl, it's romantic, but when an ugly guy does it, it's creepy. And if, for example, a geeky-nobody girl does it, it's just plain weird.

That's probably why Lydia Martin won't look twice at Stiles. Or, let's be frank, she won't even look _once_. Stiles can vividly remember the first time she saw Lydia. It was also the first instance she realized she was feeling more than just admiration for a girl—feelings that ran conspicuously deeper than the typical: _Wow, she's pretty._ _I wish I looked like her._

Stiles was immediately stunned by the cute girl with the red hair and the lacy white dress. She often wonders how her life would have changed if she went back in time to that first day and didn't make eye contact with Lydia. She really blames the eye contact. That's what did it. That's what changed her forever. If that hadn't happened, if she was put in a different class or if her bus had been on time and she got there just a little bit earlier so as to not be in that exact spot at that precise moment in time then… would she ever have fallen in love with Lydia Martin?

If she's totally honest, she thought the attraction would fade. And she didn't even _realize_ it was attraction she was feeling for a very long time. She thought it was more like a fascination. And as is the case for most fascinating things to a child, she thought it would diminish over time. It didn't. If anything, her fascination for Lydia Martin only grew, and before she knew what was happening it morphed into something akin to obsession.

What really sealed the deal were her brains. Or maybe it was her stupefying ability to disguise it. Of course, the shock of Lydia's beauty never truly went away—Stiles just grew used to being struck silly at Lydia's appearance. After that, she began to notice other things about her. Like how Lydia's beauty barely scratched the surface of who she truly was. She always seemed one step ahead of everyone else in the class, as though she'd been reading and writing since she popped out of the womb. And she _enjoyed_ learning. She really reminded Stiles of her favorite fictional character, Hermione. At least, she used to.

Once Lydia's height started changing, so did her attitude. It was like they came back from summer break one year and suddenly Lydia had mastered the art of feminine persuasion—and used her newfound weapon at every given chance. She always had a good fashion sense (a skill that eluded Stiles) and now she had deception to compound it. It didn't take long for Lydia to discover that being smarter than a boy while also trying to seduce him into doing what she wanted was counterproductive. So she started playing dumb.

Meanwhile, Stiles watched all these changes from afar. She was captivated and for the first couple years of her obsession, she waited for the feelings to fade. But as she said, they never did, until finally Stiles could deny it no more, and it all culminated to a final boiling point. It was around their sixth grade year when Stiles spoke to Lydia for the very first time. She can't remember now what the context of the conversation was, but she can vividly remember _one_ specific part.

Lydia said something to her. And after Stiles responded, there was a pause. Just that: a pause. But in that small span of time, a part of Stiles that she had been aggressively repressing for the better part of three years surfaced. Stiles and Lydia locked eyes, and Stiles' mind just went blank. She looked down and noticed how naturally red Lydia's lips were colored, and suddenly she felt compelled to kiss her, to test if they were as plush as they looked. Lydia was the one who moved away first, turning around like nothing had happened. She was completely unaffected and oblivious; while Stiles felt like she'd been struck by lightening and was paralyzed.

As soon as she realized what she'd almost done—what she _would_ have just done—what she still so deeply _wanted_ to do—she became _very_ confused.

She didn't understand. Most of the girls her age were still fangirling over Troy Bolton or a Jonas brother. None of them ever mentioned feeling anything remotely similar for another girl. Of course Stiles had been known to daydream about Lydia in the past, but those daydreams were more about befriending her, not lunging at her with her lips!

And it was scary because she found that she wanted it badly, and once it was right there in front of her she couldn't ignore it, and she couldn't stop thinking about it. Since then that moment has played over and over in her mind for years. Like an old photograph you keep in your pocket, it was faded and worn from age, but the feelings were still there.

The fantasy tortured her for days before Stiles was forced to admit to herself that she was experiencing feelings that were wholly unusual for girls to have about other girls. She can remember the confusion, the shame and the guilt. She worried she was unnatural. It was the most complicated thing in the world, because her feelings for Lydia felt simultaneously right and wrong. And every time she was in the room with her Stiles worried that Lydia would figure it out.

Could she see the effect she had on her? She was so smart; she saw _everything_ , like Sherlock Holmes or something. Could Lydia sense the attraction that screamed so loudly in Stiles' head that she was sure others nearby could hear? It took many, many years for Stiles to become comfortable with it.

In fact, it wasn't until others in her school started coming out as gay that it dawned on her that she wasn't alone. Danny Mahealani was best friends with Jackson, the boy who stole Lydia's heart at a very young age, and _he_ was gay. And everyone loves Danny! No one looks down on him for the way he feels.

And that's when Stiles understood that you can't help who you're attracted to. Once she was able to accept her feelings, she finally opened up a little. Things got better after that.

Stiles grew to embrace this side of herself. Once she freed herself of the guilt and shame, she found that the weight of the world had been lifted from her shoulders. And suddenly she could see so clearly. She likes girls; girls who have long hair, girls who smell good; smart girls with a sweet smile and a mean tongue. Confident girls, especially.

And all of these frantic, statically charged hormones raging inside Stiles were still focused with laser-like intensity upon one single female: Lydia Martin. But luckily, Stiles has had plenty of time to grow.

She's had time to overcome her childhood anxiety about it all and now, as a mature sixteen year old, she's much more rational about Lydia's blatant rejection.

Stiles turned around and smiled at Scott. School was about to start, and they needed to head inside. Over his shoulder, she caught sight of Lydia coming down the sidewalk.

A squeak escaped her lips and Stiles grabbed Scott's shoulders before ducking behind him. Confused, he tried to turn around, but she held fast. "Hide me!" She frantically whispered.

"What?" Scott frowned but did as he was told.

"Lydia is coming!" Stiles explained with a hiss.

"Ohhh," Scott said in understanding. This happened a lot. "Yeah. There she is. She's getting closer."

"Scott!" She latched onto the back of his jacket with all her strength. "Don't. Even. _Think_ about it!"

"Hey Lydia," Scott said pleasantly, waving at her as she passed. "Have a good—"

Stiles yanked him backwards and cut him off. Usually, such a harsh yank would have knocked Scott on his ass. But it simply made him stumble and his words catch in his throat before he could finish his sentence. He was laughing so hard at her, there were tears in his eyes.

"Hahah— _yeah_ , very funny, asshole!" She reached up and pushed his head down with her hands, his thick black hair disheveling, and he laughed heartily.

"Pay back, Stilinski!" Scott cackled. "That's for last night. For being such a douche."

"Fine," She relented. "We're _even_ now, alright? So never _ever_ do that ever again."

Scott made no promises as they let a beat pass to calm their excitement.

"Hurry up and show me the damage," Stiles told him, pointing at his side.

He lifted his shirt, revealing a large square of white gauze that had already bled through. She hissed in sympathy and shook her head.

"It's not so bad," Scott told her. He smoothed the bandage down and let his shirt fall back into place. "It looks worse than it is."

"Sure you don't wanna tell your mom?" Stiles suggested. Scott shook his head vehemently.

"I can handle it," He assured her, and she tilted her head skeptically.

"If you say so…"

* * *

Last class of the day, done. Kafka's Metamorphosis: The book their teacher assigned them on the first day of English class. Also known as, a book about a man transforming into a cockroach. Or, technically a 'grotesque vermin' but to Stiles that conjures an image of a cockroach.

Stiles was discussing the book to Scott. Or rather, she was _trying_ to discuss the book. Scott didn't seem to be paying much attention and that was just starting to grate on Stiles' nerves when the girl who had a locker beside Scott spoke up, which was unusual since she seemed to go out of her way to ignore Stiles most of the time.

"Superpowers are overrated," Jennifer declared. Stiles turned to her with a face of complete and total offense.

"Overrated?"

"Yeah. That's right." Jennifer closed her locker and turned to raise her eyebrows at Stiles. "I think the truth is, becoming mutated with superpowers would ruin a person's chances at a normal life."

"Who wants a normal life?" Stiles practically sneered. "Normal lives suck!"

"You're just saying that because you don't know what it's actually like to have to live with a mutation."

"You're right," Stiles agreed in a tone that seemed to suggest that Jennifer was also wrong. "I don't have a mutation. In fact, Scott and I are both pretty much as boring as they come. Average everything—nothing about us stands out—which is why we're so low on the totem pole. Mutations get a bad rap. Just look at Lydia."

Jennifer all but scoffed. "There isn't a single mutated hair on Lydia Martin's body."

Stiles put her finger up. " _See_ , that's where you're wrong! Red hair is a genetic mutation."

The sneer on Jennifer's face melted in surprise. Collectively, the pair of them turned to look at Scott, expecting him to break in and mediate at any second now. But he was still watching something down the hall. Finally they turned to see what had captured his undivided attention—and Stiles gasped before leaping to hide.

"What the—" Jennifer frowned at the unexpected movement. "What the hell! What is she doing!?"

Scott snapped out of his reverie to look down at his best friend, who was on her knees and grasping him by his hips. He blinked. "Stiles? What are you doing?"

Their position looked _very_ suggestive. The truth is, Stiles didn't think before she dropped to the ground after spotting Lydia—as always, she completely stopped thinking altogether and hid.

The fight or flight instinct is _strong_ in Stiles' subconscious, and apparently her first instinct is flight. Or more to the point: hide. Which is why she ducked behind Scott this morning as Lydia passed and she panicked, and why she's done it again. Except this time it left them in an extremely… unfortunate position, where Stiles was on her knees and grabbing her very _male_ best friend by the hips, his crotch mere inches from her face.

This is what happens when logic flees the brain.

Stiles barely had time to form a response when the very thing that inspired this disaster passed by. Lydia didn't seem to be paying a lick of attention, but the new girl with brown hair quietly observed them with a small frown beside a taunting Jackson. He was laughing loudly at them and raised a mocking eyebrow at their position, drawing his girlfriend's attention in the process. "I thought you were gay, Stilinski? Make up your mind!"

"Jackson," Lydia admonished, and Stiles' cheeks burned bright red as she fell away from her best friend like he'd struck her. At the surprised and mildly irritated look that Lydia's public reprimand earned from her boyfriend, she smoothly switched gears. "We don't have time for this!" She covered as she dragged him along. "Do you want to be late for your first practice?"

And she continued to tell Jackson and the new girl all the reasons why being late to his first practice was not an option. The chief reason? He's _captain_ , Lydia claimed, and he had to set a good example. He's not. Not yet. But he was captain last year and that's as good as precedence in common law to Lydia.

Stiles huffed and brushed herself off, accepting Scott's help to stand.

"What a jerk!" Jennifer frowned at Jackson's retreating form. "He's an asshole," She reassured Stiles and gave her a rare encouraging smile. "But maybe next time don't… do whatever you just did."

Dryly, Stiles tried not to let too much venom enter her voice because she knew she was just embarrassed. "Thanks for the tip."

"But Lydia stood up for you!" Scott enthused with a giant overeager grin. "Did you guys see that? She stood up against Jackson!"

"Of course she did," Stiles instinctively snapped. "She's not a bigot."

"Neither is Jackson," Jennifer noted. "He's just an opportunistic asshole. And he hates you guys."

Scott and Stiles exchanged a knowing glance. Can't argue with that.

* * *

It's not very often that Stiles gets to actually cheer for her friend. Cheer up, sure, absolutely—countless times. They've spent countless hours of their friendship cheering each other up over the years. But they haven't spent a whole lot of time cheering each other _on_.

It felt good, for both of them, but probably more so for Scott since he was the one who kicked ass in lacrosse today. Stiles kept the same spot on the bench she always did. Coach typically lets her play at least once a game, to avoid any and all accusations of gender-bias, but for the majority of the time she was just a sub. And so was Scott. Until now.

He was a completely new person at practice. He caught balls thrown by Jackson— _Jackson_ —and that was no small thing. Scott's been over the moon ever since. Stiles seized the opportunity laid before her with both hands (sometimes she felt more Slytherin than Gryffindor) and rode Scott's unusual swell of pride all the way to the Preserve. She didn't even have to drag him.

Here's some context to their _Preserve Adventures: Part Two:_ As soon as practice was over Stiles and Scott quickly realized that his inhaler was still missing, and that's a huge issue. He started to suggest simply claiming that he lost it since it had basically been empty anyways—but Stiles dashed that and insisted upon going into the woods to find it. She was prepared to draw up a list of reasons why it would be better to return to the woods to find his inhaler, but she found that she didn't need to. Surprisingly, Scott agreed almost immediately.

It didn't take a genius to figure out why Scott was so willing to go explore in the woods so soon after his attack; he's _still_ boasting about his unprecedented success at practice today.

"—it was like I had all the time in the world to catch the ball," Scott turned to look at Stiles' reaction to this bit of news where he stood ankle deep in the frigid water of the stream that stretched across the Preserve.

Stiles raised her eyebrows and gave his elbow a gentle push to hurry him along. "Speaking of all the time in the world, I'd really like to get out of this creek before my toes freeze and snap off my feet."

"Sorry," Scott rushed to the edge and turned to help Stiles climb onto dry land with him. Just another weird instance in a day filled with crap that didn't make sense—Stiles mentally added another mark to her running tally. Scott's increased balance this morning when he didn't fall after she gave him a rough shove, his weirdly increased agility, the fact that _he's_ the one helping _her_ out of the creek today when he could barely crest a molehill last night.

"Maybe you're finally hitting puberty," Stiles joked with no small measure of teasing in her voice, and she snickered when Scott nudged her arm and she stumbled as she lost balance.

"Shut up," Scott grinned despite his words. "Jerk."

"Anyways, that's not the only weird thing." Scott continued, and it took Stiles a moment to process what he meant. "I can hear stuff I shouldn't be able to hear, smell things!"

Stiles raised her eyebrows at him and paused. "Smell things? Like what?"

"Like the Chapstick and mint mojito gum in the front pocket of your jacket."

Stiles scrunched her face and shook her head. "Chapstick and…" Her fingers hit the smooth cap of a tube of Chapstick and her eyes bulged as she dug the contents of her pocket out.

Stiles gawked at the objects she held aloft in her palm, but Scott just appeared sort of uneasy and knowing and he was more worried about the expression on his friend's face than the fact that he was apparently right.

"That was a…" Stiles weakly tried to rationalize. "That was a pretty good guess."

Scott's eyes glinted with childlike uncertainty. "Yeah," He lamely agreed, though they both knew they were lying to themselves.

She looked away and continued through the woods. She thought over her tally. "And you're saying all this started with the bite?"

"Well, what if it's like an infection?" Scott suggested as Stiles pushed up her sleeves and frowned at the thought. "Like what if my body is flooding with adrenaline before I got into shock or something?"

She gave him a wry grin and her tone matched her face as she replied. "Okay, chill out you hypochondriac. You're sounding a little paranoid now. I'm sure you don't have rabies."

"Rabies?" Scott exclaimed, his eyes wide and frightened as he froze and then turned to her. "Rabies!"

Stiles' grin faltered on her face and she shook her head. "No, that was a joke."

"But think about it!" Scott persisted. "It was a wild animal, of course it could've had rabies—"

"Scott _stop_ ," Stiles touched his arm and her voice was gentler as she reassured him. "The symptoms of rabies are flulike, not—superhero like."

"Oh," Scott sighed. "Well good then."

"Yeah." Stiles rolled her eyes. "Come on, let's find this inhaler and get out of here. I wanna play that new videogame tonight."

"It was right about…" Scott stopped and looked around the forest floor. He led her over to a spot a good stretch away, right next to a tree. "Right here, I think, but the body is gone."

To Stiles, she had no idea how he could tell a difference. This spot looked the exact same as the spot next to every other tree they've passed. She hoped he couldn't smell it or something creepy like that. "Maybe the killer moved the body," She morbidly mused.

Scott rolled his eyes up at her and then agreed. "Well hopefully they didn't take my inhaler. Those things cost like eighty bucks…"

Stiles felt the prickle of someone watching her. Like the paranoid goosebumps that rise at the back of your neck, and she turned around. A man stood in the middle of the woods some distance off, watching them. He wore all black, and in the dreary background of the muted tan and beige color of the woods, he stuck out like an angry black stake in the ground.

Stiles' heart leapt in her throat and she didn't dare take her eyes off the strange man as she smacked Scott's arm to grab his attention. She saw her friend turn curiously to her from where he knelt on the ground and then when he turned further and saw the man he quickly jumped to stand beside her.

Finally the stranger started towards them. His pace wasn't calm or polite—he loped with the gait of an extremely pissed off man, stalking over the leaves so hard that even Stiles could hear the crunch under the man's boots as he advanced, and Stiles couldn't help but back up a step in apprehension.

That fight or flight instinct was bubbling up like bile in her throat and the only reason she didn't immediately bolt was because Scott stood bravely beside her, almost defiantly.

"What are you doing here?" The man demanded once close enough. Now that he was closer Stiles could make out features beyond white skin and dark hair. Everything about him was striking—the dark leather jacket he wore, the sharp angular features of his face and his black hair that was styled shortly and swept up from his forehead. And something stubborn poked at the back of her overwhelming panic and whispered that she knew him. She knew who he was. She ignored the thought.

Scott glanced sidelong at Stiles.

Their lack of response seemed to irritate the man even more. "This is private property," He stressed.

So it was a matter of trespassing. This was familiar territory to Stiles; laws were not something she was afraid of addressing. Still, her voice betrayed her trepidation. "Uhh—sorry man, we didn't know."

He looked remarkably unimpressed at this explanation but she sure as hell didn't intend to justify her actions any further to the strangely familiar man. He owns property out here? What was his _name?_

Scott followed her lead and kept his eyes trained on the stranger. "Yeah we were just… looking for something, but…." He trailed off and the man raised his eyebrows at him impatiently. Irritation sparked in Stiles stomach and she felt her insolence rear its ugly head—she _hated_ bullies, and right now this man felt unmistakably like a bully. "Just forget it," Scott finished with a frown.

Stiles was about to chime in when the man withdrew something from his pocket and tossed it over to Scott. He caught it, which should have been another tally to her list, but Stiles was too distracted to make note of it.

Her heart, which was already pattering quickly in distress, dropped to her stomach before vaulting up into her throat when she saw that he had tossed Scott his inhaler. Alarms blared in her mind and she tried to keep the blatant fear from her face but she knew she probably failed if the poorly disguised sneer on the stranger's face was anything to go by, and Stiles couldn't help but take a step back.

How did he get it? Why did he have it? They had just been joking about the killer moving the body and taking his inhaler, and now… this is how the news articles always start in the paper when they talk about murders. This exact type of situation. And right now her dad's voice was in her head demanding that they turn around and politely leave before anything else can happen.

But then the stranger turned his back and started to leave and it was as she watched him turn around that another news article suddenly streaked across her mind like an airplane dragging a banner behind it in the sky. _The Hale Family Fire!_

"Dude!" She urgently hissed, smacking Scott's arm. "That was _Derek Hale!"_ Scott shrugged blankly at her and aggravation flared in her stomach as she impatiently explained. "You remember, right? He's only a few years older than us…"

Scott shook his head. "Remember what?"

"His _family?_ " Stiles stressed. "They burned to death in a fire like ten years ago."

Scott looked thoughtfully towards the retreating figure that was little more than a black figure passing through the trees at this point, a frown on his face. "I wonder what he's doing back?"

He looked to Stiles like he expected her to have an answer but she only shrugged in response. "Come on," She told him, grabbing his arm to hook through hers as a source of comfort. "Let's get out of here. Apparently we're trespassing."

* * *

Stiles sat in her room that night with two lists laid out in front of her. She transferred her mental tally of Scott's weird developments onto paper. Her thoughts are usually frenzied and complicated and hard for even herself to follow, so putting them out in a linear fashion usually clears things up and helps keep things in perspective. And after this afternoon she desperately needed some perspective.

Scott is changing, there's no doubt about it. It's funny that what she had dreamed about for so long was finally happening, but not at all in the manner she'd imagined. Scott is already rapidly gaining popularity and it's not even the end of the first day of school.

She looked over the paper and ran her thumb thoughtfully along her bottom lip.

Scott's Changes

· Reflexes. As in, he's got them now.

· Supposed changes in hearing and smelling. To an extreme.

· Confidence?

· Crush on new girl. Definitely.

Her best friend is different, for sure. She would keep a close eye on him.

Next up: the mystery in the woods. Several things had happened there in the span of less than twenty four hours—things that needed further investigating, as far as Stiles is concerned, because whatever is going on is now effecting her life, and more directly, her best friend's life. And that's something that demands Stiles' attention.

This second list wasn't as straightforward. Actually, it was more like a web than a list. The changes and facts connected, but not in a linear fashion because Stiles couldn't see a logical explanation just yet.

This is what she knows.

A young woman, as yet to be identified, was killed. Brutally. Ripped in half, her remains scattered across the Preserve. There's a lot of mystery surrounding this young woman but Stiles doesn't have nearly enough concrete facts to even begin to guess at any sort of explanation.

Next, her killer. Human or animal? Obviously, it was a savage way to kill someone. Whatever did it is not fit to roam freely, be it human or otherwise. It's difficult to imagine what sort of animal could possibly rip a person in half like that and then not proceed to eat it. A macabre thought, but true nonetheless.

Derek Hale. He's unexpectedly returned to Beacon Hills, where he has no family left and certainly only horrible memories to haunt him. He left soon after his family died. She hadn't seen or heard of him in years, until just a few hours ago when she and Scott were literally confronted by him in the woods. He's not a suspect though. As far as she knows her father has not been able to come up with any suspects for all the reasons Stiles has already listed, and certainly many more that she is not privy to.

Could it be mere coincidence that Derek Hale shows up right after the young woman was brutally killed? No, that doesn't seem true. He was out in the woods this afternoon. If she had seen Derek in a supermarket or a gas station, that would be one thing. But out in the woods exactly where Scott claimed to have found the dead body? And he was in possession of Scott's inhaler? No, that was _more_ than a little suspicious. Coincidence doesn't fit anywhere in that scenario.

She had that foreboding, heavy feeling of being in over her head. Something about this whole thing didn't sit right with Stiles. She's not a stupid girl. She's naturally suspicious, and add onto it all the horrible crap that's been happening lately, along with the sudden changes in her best friend, and Stiles is positively beside herself with theories that scared her.

She was unsurprised to find her dad in his office. He was studying an open file. His shirt was unbuttoned and his hair looked messy, as though he'd run his hand through it more than once, and beside him sat a mostly empty cup of coffee.

Stiles gently rapped her knuckles against the doorframe. Sheriff looked up and flipped a file shut, a motion that irritated Stiles since she immediately knew that meant it was _confidential_ and she's got this insatiable streak of curiosity that ran through her and demanded to know what the contents of the file were. "Hey, kiddo," Sheriff greeted with a smile on his face. "How was your first day? And lacrosse; I hear Scott really impressed everyone this afternoon. That's great!"

"He definitely surprised everyone, but I don't know if he _impressed_ everyone," Stiles ruefully smirked. "Jackson was pretty angry, actually."

Sheriff raised his eyebrows. "That's just because he thinks Scott will try to _usurp_ his throne."

Stiles snorted and gleefully fantasized about that, and Sheriff eyed his daughter carefully.

"How about you?" He asked measuredly. Stiles focused on him again, a silent question on her face. "Think you'll make first line this year?"

Stiles sighed and her pride didn't allow her to say no, though that's exactly what she thought. "I don't know," She said instead. "We'll see how it goes. Maybe Scott's good luck will rub off on me."

"Luck?" Sheriff scoffed, and quickly schooled his features to prevent hurting his daughter's feelings. "You practiced a lot with Scott this summer, and you've always been an important part of the team."

"Thanks dad," Stiles tried not to let any of her sarcasm peek through her words but by the look on his face it didn't work. "What about the case? Anything new?"

He leveled her a glare that expressed what he said even before he said it. "Stiles," He warned.

"I'm not asking to _read_ the files!" She quickly defended. "I just want to know if I have to be on the lookout for some crazy killer!"

"Like I always tell you, be aware of your surroundings. And stay away from the Preserve, if that wasn't already obvious, and you should be fine." Sheriff paused to consider his daughter with a cynical look on his aged face. "Don't look at me like that. I know you want to go back out there, but I'm serious. This poor girl—" He broke off and looked down at the file that rested under his hand, a darkness passing across his face now. "Just stay out of there, okay?"

"Because the killer returns to the scene of the crime?" Stiles guessed, and she felt a small surge of victory when her dad's eyes snapped up to her.

He scowled. "Stiles," He warned again, with more ire in his voice. "Stop it!"

"What?" She put her hands out. "What did I say?"

"You're not a cop," He scolded, and Stiles felt a bit of her pride wounded. It would've hurt less for him to slap her on the wrist and he seemed to immediately regret his choice of words when he saw her expression because he visibly softened. "You're a kid. _My_ kid."

And he didn't want her to end up like that other girl. She sighed and looked down at her socked feet, scuffing the carpet dejectedly. "Fine," she muttered and he echoed her sigh and rubbed his face tiredly. "Night, dad."

She fled before he could respond. It was childish, she knew, but his words did actually sting. There were few things that she and her dad could connect over. She inherited all her nosiness and natural suspicion from him, and those are the traits that made him such a great Sheriff. Their shared trait was both a gift and a curse.

At times it seemed to bring them closer together. Some kids tossed a baseball with their dad as children—Stiles watched crime shows and talked about criminals. The both paid attention to the national news and would often share cases that they found disturbing or interesting with each other. But when those cases found their way into Beacon Hills, it stopped being interesting and started becoming personal. And that's where the hobby turned dangerous for Stiles.

Unfortunately, oftentimes their relationship strained as a result. Because Stiles is relentless and her father is still her father, and so his duty to protect her and his duty to protect their city would war with each other, and sometimes Stiles was the one whose feelings were sacrificed. And the mature response would be to suck it up and recognize that she shouldn't be trying to play detective. But she couldn't help it anymore than he could.

Anyways, it was late, and she still had reading to do. Time to go get inside the head of a mutated cockroach.

* * *

The next morning Stiles lay in bed staring at the ceiling. She woke up and for a blissful moment, she completely forgot about the past few days. Her mind was on breakfast. Her stomach growled already, and she was thinking specifically about the frozen waffles in the freezer, considering whether she would want peanut butter on them or fruit.

Then she thought of her dad and everything came rushing back. As she lay there and rubbed her face, she knew that she needed to go make amends. So by the time she had dressed and made her way through the house to the kitchen, she had a whole speech drawn up in her head.

She would gauge his mood first. Then from there, she would either cheerfully greet him like nothing happened, or apologize. But she heard him speaking on the phone and—well, old habits die hard.

Stiles lingered in the dining room outside the kitchen and listened closely.

"And you're absolutely _sure_ about that? The animal hairs found on the body was a—a _wolf_ hair?"

Everything she'd rehearsed flew out of her head and she stifled a gasp as she hopped away from the kitchen, her mind racing. A wolf? A _wolf_ had attacked the young woman?

Scott was attacked by an animal in the woods, and it bit him on the side. The girl had been ripped in half across the middle of her stomach. The spots were similar—could it be? It had to be.

It had to be the same thing. Whatever killed the girl attacked Scott, but for some reason it left him with only a bite. In comparison to how the girl died, Scott's wound was little more than a scratch.

And yet, it was still a scratch. The wolf drew blood. And damn her for being such a nerd, but Stiles' mind connected Scott's changes with the bite he'd received and the wolf that killed the girl and suddenly it was all adding up—not to rabies, but to something else entirely.

She had to talk to Scott. The front door slammed shut behind her, breakfast and apology long-since forgotten.

* * *

Of course the revelation this morning was little more than a hunch. It was something—something big, she knew that much. But she hadn't really been convinced of it until tryouts.

Scott blasted straight past reflexes into an entirely new category. He wasn't just catching the ball and dodging a tackle, he was _stealing_ the ball and back flipping over the defense players. He wasn't just getting the ball to the goal—every single shot he made got past the goalie. And he made it look _easy_.

Sure, she and Scott practiced this summer. But _this_ was something completely different. This was more than he could've achieved through practice. So Stiles zipped straight home and dove headfirst into research. At first she was researching with the hopes that what she found would prove her theory wrong.

But the more she found, the more it was looking like she was right on the money. A wolf didn't kill that girl, and a wolf didn't bite Scott. It was a _were_ wolf. That's why he's changing. That's why, after a full summer of practicing and barely learning to properly pick the ball up in the stick, Scott's inexplicably become better at lacrosse than their team captain seemingly overnight.

And he did _not_ respond well to her theory—not that she could blame him. But she's pacing her room right now because—well, for a lot of reasons.

One, he doesn't seem to believe her. That's never happened before, by the way. He always believes whatever cockamamie theory she comes up with—or at least he plays along. Something about this is different though; it's like he's terrified of the possibility that she's right, and that he is rapidly transforming into a werewolf.

But all the evidence is there, right there in front of them! His heightened senses and reflexes, and miraculous recovery from asthma? Explain _that_.

Two, tonight is the full moon. And according to all the research she's done, Scott is going to transform for the first time ever. Tonight. And _he_ wants to go to a freaking _party_. On a _date!_ With _a girl!_

When it became clear that he wouldn't listen to reason, Stiles tried to take matters into her own hands. She picked up his cellphone and informed him that she was personally canceling his date with Allison, and Scott snapped. Seriously, he snapped.

He came inches from hitting Stiles, and to say that he scared the crap out of her would be the understatement of the century. Scared her, partly because he came close to hitting her, mostly because it was proof that she was _right_. That he was dangerously close to losing control already, and the moon hadn't even risen yet—and he wanted to go on a _date!_

Three, the party would be thrown by none other than Lydia Martin. Stiles has a whole novel of reasons why that gives her anxiety, but the leading reason is that she knows that as long as Scott attends that party tonight, so will she. Which would put her in the direct path of Lydia Martin, and that scares the shit out of her. What if she _sees_ her? What would she say? What would she wear?

A dress was too much. Scott was being stupid and she was definitely mad at him for being such a complete douche this afternoon—he wrecked her favorite _chair!—_ but she was going to that party primarily to keep an eye on him. She wouldn't talk to him (the idiot would be on a date after all) but she would stick close by in case anything happened and he needed her. And she strongly suspects that he will need her.

So a dress was out of the question. Those are annoying and require too much attention. Stiles is unused to wearing them. Every time she wears one she runs the risk of flashing someone or, frankly, looking as uncomfortable as she felt. And she didn't have the patience, time, or desire to put up with all of that. So even though this was sure to be at least a mildly formal party (it is Lydia's after all) she wore shorts and her favorite party shirt under her favorite red and black plaid shirt. Her dark t-shirt read _lucky party shirt_ and her plaid shirt was just… well, that was just Stiles' taste.

Makeup. She could use a mascara wand, sort of. She kept the makeup wipes close by to clean up all the inevitable messes that occurred when her hand eventually went haywire and smeared a _lovely_ splotch of black onto her face. That was the extent of her makeup expertise.

Satisfied with her appearance, Stiles got in her jeep and puttered over to the Martins' residence, arriving only twenty minutes after the party started so that she could park along the street and insure herself a quick getaway. High school social etiquette said anyone who came to a party within the first hour was apparently lame, but Stiles would rather be lame than risk her best friend… _mauling_ someone. To death. Literally.

She found someone to talk to fairly quickly and kept an eye on the door. When Scott and Allison arrived, he barely looked at her. His eyes darkened in annoyance at seeing her there and he turned away in uncharacteristic pettiness, and it appeared that Stiles and Scott were apparently engaged in their first ever friendship-fight. So be it.

Stiles didn't let her friend's bitterness impede her vigilance. She kept watch over him as best as she could, but eventually his childishness gave way to her own annoyance, and as the night grew on Stiles' temper became more and more frayed.

Scott was being a dick. Lydia and Jackson were literally dry humping against one of the exterior walls of the house, meanwhile Lydia kept throwing Scott glances—a fact that did _not_ escape Stiles' notice—and actually, the conversations around her about being young and being at a party became infectious. Soon enough she found that she stopped watching Scott's every move and instead let herself become just the slightest bit absorbed in the atmosphere of the party.

That was her first mistake. Her second was not chasing after her friend as fast as she could when he abandoned Allison and started through the crowd. Allison was calling after him in confusion, and Scott barely seemed to respond as he wove through the crowd. Stiles didn't get a great look at him but something about the whole thing seemed off. He'd been so determined to have this date, and now he's just _leaving_ in the middle of it?

She knew exactly why he was leaving, actually, and she was certain that it had everything to do with the moon that was now at its full peak. So Stiles fought her way through the thick crowd of her fellow students and followed Allison outside.

Alarms wailed in her head again when she spotted Derek Hale leading Allison over to his car. She barely had time to register that Allison was willingly getting into Derek's car before logic took control of her brain again and Stiles flew over to her jeep.

Allison got into Derek's car. Stiles hoped to god that meant she knew the man, and that of course sprung about a hundred new questions in Stiles' head, but she quickly shoved them back to the recess of her mind and focused on following his black Camaro down the street. He undoubtedly knew she was following them, but quite frankly, she didn't give a damn. If Derek Hale is the killer and he tried to take Allison anywhere except home, Stiles is calling her dad.

She followed them a fairly short distance just a few blocks over and into a separate but equally affluent neighborhood. The black car pulled to a serene stop in front of a large mansion that had its porch light on, and Stiles had no choice but to continue past the pair of them. She turned the corner of the next street and parked by a stop sign, turned her lights off, and waited with bated breath, her fingers stuck over the speed dial on her phone.

Stiles didn't have to wait long. Soon enough, the black car crept up the stop sign. She could feel that same familiar prickle of being watched as the car stopped for an intermittent period of time and just as she was about to press the call button, the car pulled away. She watched it until it went all the way to the end of the neighborhood before finally pulling out onto the street that led back toward the Preserve.

Stiles flicked her headlights back on and drove past the house again. There was no one outside, but the front porch light was now turned off. She took that as a reassuring sign and sighed in relative relief. Now, the next issue. Scott.

Scott's house was dark. His had taken his mom's car to the party and now it sat half in the yard and half on the driveway. She knew Melissa was at work, which meant Scott was home alone.

She didn't hesitate to just walk through the front door—which was unlocked, and that attested to the fact that Scott was losing control and unfocused. He was usually very good about locking the front door. But something had distracted him.

It didn't take long to track him up to his room, and she pounded loudly against the wood of his door. "Scott, it's me!" She called, turning the doorknob and pushing against the door. But it was pushed back and she just had time to jam her foot between the door and the frame to keep it open. "Let me in, Scott, I can help!"

"No!" He panted. His voice quaked and there was an unfamiliar note of roughness to it, like he had a cold or something. "Just—just go find Allison, okay? Make sure she's alright for me."

"I did, she's fine," Stiles quickly reassured. "She got a ride home from the party. She's totally fine, alright?"

"No; I think I know who it is!" Scott frantically insisted through the closed door. Stiles frowned and gave a gentle shove, but it was like pushing against a wall. "Derek," Scott finally elaborated. "Derek Hale—he's the werewolf—he's the one who bit me—he's the one that killed the girl in the woods!"

Stiles' blood ground to a screeching halt in her veins. It was a suspicion that had been nagging her all day, a theory that she had kept at bay in fear of overreacting or jumping to conclusions. With a quieter tone, Stiles said, "Scott, Derek's the one who drove Allison from the party..."

Hoping that this would be the thing that finally convinced Scott to let her in, she waited to hear his response. But she was only met with silence. Giving the door a push, she was surprised to find it opened easily. "Scott?" She asked, but his room was empty.

The window was open and the light was still on in his bathroom. She heard a roar from outside—loud enough that it shook the glass in the window and seemed to shake the entire foundation of the house. The roar was inhuman, it was a monstrous thing that triggered her fight or flight instincts. She grit her teeth and waited for a moment, going against every fiber in her body that _screamed_ at her to take cover, and the moment of irrational fear passed.

Or perhaps not such an irrational fear, since once she got to the window and looked at the yard below she saw that Scott was nowhere to be found and concluded he was going to find Allison.

 _Shit._

* * *

Allison was home. Stiles sped straight there, knocked on the door and almost fell over in relief at seeing Allison home and unharmed. She's pretty sure that Allison's mom has the impression that Stiles suffers from brain damage or something, but that's neither here nor there. What was really important was that Scott was still MIA.

And now Stiles was steering her jeep aimlessly through the city, hoping—praying to catch sight of her best friend. She must have called him about a thousand times. Every part of her wished fiercely that she could just call her dad and have the entire police force out searching for Scott, but what would she say, exactly?

Hey, by the way, you haven't happened to see Scott out and about on the town, have you? He'd be acting pretty weirdly—maybe look hopped up on drugs. No, he's not _actually_ on drugs, he's just transforming into a mythical creature because of the full moon, and I'm worried that he's going to rain terror and strife down upon the city. So yeah, it's pretty imperative that we find him.

That feeling she mentioned last night about being in over her head? It had multiplied, and she was in full-blown panic mode. Surprisingly the panicky part of her panic mode had broken and given way to numbness. Her hands and legs were freezing and she wished, not for the first time, that the heat in her jeep worked.

She combed through the streets of suburbia and the longer she looked the more her numb-panic turned sour. It had been about forty-five minutes since she started looking for Scott, and her bitterness was pretty much on full blast right about now.

She had half a mind to start whistling out the window and calling his name like the dog he was. No sooner did she have the thought then she spotted a dog trotting alongside the road, and her heart lodged itself in her throat.

Should she? Did she dare?

Her jeep crept to a stop and she put it in park. The dog wasn't massive—it looked like some sort of Border Collie—and it cowered away from the jeep. When Stiles whistled, it turned to peer curiously at the jeep and paced back and forth on the sidewalk.

She got out and her heart thrummed loudly in her chest as she put her hand up, coming around the front of her jeep. "Um…" She softly said, shifting her tone to be gentle and unassuming. "Scott?"

The dog's ears fell back and it practically trembled with excitement, quickly scampering forward when it saw her hand was out and she was talking to it. Stiles wanted to panic at the thought that this small dog could actually be her best friend, but she put on a brave face and set her jaw. Before she really had time to think about it the dog was curling back and forth around her legs in barely contained excitement, snorting at her ankles and licking her legs every chance it got.

But Stiles was sighing and grinning in relief and exasperation, because there was a bright blue collar fastened around its neck. She took a knee and scruffed the top of the dog's head as it lunged forward and tried to shower her with enthusiastic kisses as she grabbed its collar to read the metallic dog-bone-shaped tag hanging from it.

"Ollie," she sighed at the dog, and it gave a happy snort and nudged her hand with its nose, its tail wagging so fast that it kicked up a small wind. "Ollie, you scared the shit out of me…"

The dog was hanging halfway out the window of the jeep. Ollie barked at streetlights as they drove, and was happy to listen to Stiles as she vented to him.

"It's not that I'm trying to complain about him," Stiles confided. "It's just that he's being such a dumb ass! Who does that? Who _leaves_ in the middle of the night like that?"

The dog turned to look directly at her briefly before it looked away with a huff and craned its neck outside the window again.

"Oh," Stiles barely suppressed a smirk. "I forgot. What's _with_ your species, anyways? You always run away for no good reason! People are only trying to help and you just take off!"

The dog wasn't even listening anymore as it practically exploded in excitement when it caught sight of its house. It was barking quite frequently and loudly at this point, and to be honest Stiles would be glad to return it home.

It took about three minutes to return the dog to its rightful owners. They were surprised to find that their dog had snuck away—and she could relate to that. But she was somewhat baffled to find that they didn't scold it more. They just seemed grateful to have it back.

Whatever. Stiles was already back in her jeep and she spent the next five hours going over every known inch of Beacon Hills with a fine tooth comb, until she finally decided to go try her luck at the Preserve. After all, that's where they last saw Derek, isn't it?

She stayed out searching until long after the sun had risen. Stiles was just on her last lap around the winding roads of the Preserve when she finally found him, walking along the side of the road much like Ollie had been, and she cheered briefly before exasperation took over.

Deciding to be just a little petty, Stiles quietly rolled the window down and came to a gentle stop beside Scott. She leaned over and whistled out the window like she was calling a dog. "Scott!" She hollered. "Come here, boy!"

Her friend shot her a scathing glare and he seemed to want to turn away and leave. Stiles smirked and reached over to push the door open, and Scott rolled his eyes before he finally trudged over and climbed into the passenger seat.

As soon as he was in they both paused and turned to each other as if waiting to hear the other apologize. Stiles snorted and returned her attention to the road, putting the jeep in gear and pulling away.

Scott sighed and leaned against the window, apparently exhausted.

A few minutes passed before Scott finally broke the silence. He started explaining his night, and everything that had happened from the moment he left his room to the moment Stiles picked him up in her jeep.

He'd tracked Allison's scent back to the woods. He found her jacket hanging in a tree, and soon after that he was ambushed. Hunters. He explained Derek showing up and saving him, and then Derek declaring the bite a gift. And claiming that Scott and he were brothers now. Stiles _particularly_ didn't like that last bit.

And after Scott revealed that despite all that had happened last night, he was the most worried about Allison, Stiles had actually felt physically sick to her stomach.

Sick because she was so frustrated with him. Sick because it's true, and he's a werewolf now, and apparently there are werewolf hunters, and apparently Derek Hale is going to be bothering them for a very long time to come. Sick because in the wake of all of this, Scott is more worried about whether or not a _girl_ likes him. Sick because at the same time, she can't blame him for that.

She simply sighed and reassured him that Allison didn't hate him. "Trust me," She said. "I'm a girl, I know these things."

Scott seemed unconvinced. "What do I say to her?"

Stiles drew a breath. "Most people would say that honesty is the best policy," She told him, and Scott looked at her like she was crazy. She shrugged defensively. "I said most people! And it's an option, don't look at me like that! It's a valid option. You could tell her the truth… or, you could tell her a version of the truth and say you were sick. She can't fault you for that, right?"

Scott groaned. "I hate that I'm already lying to her. I hate that I messed up our first date to begin with."

"Yeah," Stiles couldn't help but comment. "Probably should've rescheduled."

Scott glared at her but Stiles just smugly grinned in return.

"Next time don't go out with her on the full moon. Problem solved."


	3. Chapter 3

_**This story is a collaboration between TheCatalystX and Hurricane.'97**_

 _ **We henceforth disclaim all rights and ownership to any characters or familiar story elements that might be found in the following chapter. Which is a fancy way to say: Teen Wolf doesn't belong to us. Duh.**_

 _ **We really appreciate the follows and favorites we've received, but some reviews to let us know what you're thinking would be nice too!**_

 _ **Enjoy! :)**_

* * *

 _"If it can go wrong, it will go wrong." - Murphy's Law_

* * *

 **Chapter Three:**

"Just focus on lacrosse," Stiles pleaded with Scott. They were in the locker room and the coach had just blown the whistle. Right before that, Scott revealed that Allison's father was the hunter that tried to kill him last night.

She pushed his lacrosse uniform firmly against his chest, the gloves on her hands making the action somewhat awkward, and Scott was barely listening as he devolved into panic and mumbled about Allison's dad literally wanting to kill him.

"Hey!" Stiles called over the shrill second blow of the whistle. "Lacrosse, man, _please!_ Focus on lacrosse, okay?"

 _Sweet lord, one problem at a time_ , Stiles thought to herself as Scott finally, mercifully, took the pads from her hands and began to dress himself. She huffed a sigh of relief and ran a gloved hand over her hair, her cleats clicking uncomfortably against the waxed floors of the boys' locker rooms.

Coach blew the whistle loudly at Stiles as soon as he caught sight of her emerging outside. "Hey!" He squawked. "Stilinski, for the thousandth time, stay out of the boys' locker rooms!"

She threw her hands up. "It was an emergency, Coach!"

"I don't care!" He yelled back in a mocking tone, violently gesturing for her to get on the field. "You're lucky I'm such a gentleman, or you'd be running twenty laps instead of ten!"

"Ten laps!?" Stiles' whined, and Coach bitterly laughed at her.

"Oh yeah, _ten_ laps! And I'll be watching so no cheating, either!" He turned away to address the rest of the players. "Everyone else, one-on-ones, let's go!"

Stiles huffed irritably and went to the edge of the field to begin her first lap. "No good deed goes unpunished," She muttered to herself and scowled at her best friend that finally decided to grace the field with his presence.

Scott noticed her running around the edges of the field as the other players gathered together and lined up. Scott put his hands out in a silent question and she stuck her hand in the air—he knew her well enough to recognize the gesture as less than kind. He winced and waved apologetically, and she shook her head and tucked into the rest of her laps so she didn't miss too much practice, resisting the urge to stick her hand in the air again when coach blew his whistle and screeched at her to run faster.

By the time she finished she was huffing and her cheeks were warm, and Scott was up next. She didn't get over to him in time to warn him to be careful.

Instead, she got to watch as Jackson mowed down Scott with a vengeance. It seemed that Jackson had a point to make, and he smirked cockily as he strutted away while the Coach strode towards Scott with an uneasy laugh.

Stiles bit anxiously at her glove and watched Scott get to his feet. He bent over, clearly in pain, and whatever Coach said to Scott clearly didn't help matters.

After he was finished hissing in Scott's ear, Scott quickly loped back to the start of the line and Coach put his hand in the air to inform the rest of them what was happening. "McCall's gonna do it again!" Coach taunted. "McCall's gonna do it again!"

Stiles shook her head at Scott but he didn't even pay attention to her as he took his place in the front of the line and crouched low. She bounced back and forth on her heels and grumbled to herself as Coach blew the whistle.

Scott lumbered forward, appearing to move slowly when in reality he actually had quite a bit of speed to his movements, sort of like a large machine. Or a shark. Stiles could almost hear the Jaws' theme playing in her head and winced when Scott finally crashed into Jackson and Jackson went down like nothing more than a skinny stalk of corn.

Even Scott grabbed the sides of his helmet in apparent pain. Stiles took that as her cue and shoved the other players aside to dart across the grass. She took her friend by the shoulder and cast Jackson an uncertain glance, leaning down to quietly ask Scott what happened.

He groaned and bent over again and she lifted his shoulder back. He looked up at her and she gasped at the unnatural yellow glow reflected in his eyes. "Scott, what's wrong with you?" She whispered for the second time.

"I can't control it Stiles, _it's happening,"_ He wheezed, squeezing his eyes shut and lurching forward in apparent pain.

"Shit!" She gasped. "Seriously? Come on, dude!" Stiles whirled around in a panic and when she saw that most of the players were focused on Jackson, she latched onto his arm and helped him towards the locker rooms. "Right now? Can't you just _hold it in_ or something? God, I feel like I'm house breaking a puppy!"

Her steps were short and quick as she practically carried him across the field, a constant chant of _not-yet-not-yet-not-yet_ streaming from her lips. Finally they spilled into the locker room and she held the door open for him and helped guide him towards a bench.

They didn't quite make it and he fell to the floor in a heap. "Crap, Scott, are you okay?" She panicked, crouching low to get a look at his face and try and see what was happening.

His pants turned into grunts and he bared his teeth—scratch that—his _fangs_ at her, and suddenly exploded, bellowing, " _GET AWAY FROM ME!"_

Stiles could scarcely breathe, she was so shocked, and she fell on her butt in her haste to back up. Despite his words, Scott didn't seem to intend to let her get away, and she could barely manage to keep out of his grasp as she crawled back and he pursued her.

His eyes were crazed and his grunts had turned into rabid snorts, and she flung herself to her feet and went to hide around the corner of some lockers, clipping her shoulder along the way.

There was a crash at the top of the lockers and she looked up to see Scott perched over top her like some sort of mountain lion, in a complete frenzy as he roared frantically at her.

She squeaked in fright and scrambled away. This time she didn't risk taking her eyes off him—and they proceeded to start an unfortunate game of wolf-and-mouse. Stiles would dart for cover and Scott would crawl through the beams overhead or along the top of the lockers closest to her, and all the while she was desperately trying to find something to defend herself with.

She needed something to snap him out of it. And she saw it; saw her chance, hanging just inside the doorframe of the locker room. A bright red fire extinguisher. Once she was close enough she turned to spray him just in the knick of time, and miraculously, it worked. He yanked back with a literal yelp and put his hands up to block the white spray that cascaded across him.

Stiles wasted no time in turning the corner of the door to put a wall between them. She held the heavy extinguisher to her chest, the nozzle clutched tightly in her hand as she braced herself to spray him again if he came bursting out of the locker room.

From inside the room his voice, meek and winded, called her name. She dared to peek around the corner again, and when she saw Scott panting on the bench with a pathetic expression of horror and shame and confusion, she slumped against the wall with relief. "What happened?" He asked.

She closed her eyes and took a second to catch her breath before doing anything. Sighing sharply, she half huffed and half grunted, "You asshole…" The extinguisher dropped to the floor with a hollow metallic thud and her voice was wispy and brittle as she came into the door of the locker room and tore a glove off her hand. "You tried—" she breathlessly accused. "To kill me."

Scott hung his head in disgrace and truly looked every bit of the pouting puppy as she trudged across the waxed floors to crouch in front of him, grabbing his knee for support. He put a hand on her arm to steady her and watched with worried eyebrows as she continued to speak. "It's like I told you before, if you had been _listening_ , you'd know."

Guilt was painted across every inch of his face. " _Okay_ , I'm sorry! What? I'm listening, I swear. What did I do wrong?"

She rolled her eyes, tired. "Your heart rate got too high, Scott. You were too angry. It triggered you to transform."

He looked in absolute despair. "But that's lacrosse! It's a pretty violent game, if you hadn't noticed!"

"Yeah!" She nodded. "And it's gonna be a lot _more_ violent if you end up killing someone on the field."

Scott put his head in his hands. "What do I do, Stiles?"

Her heart tugged at how completely miserable he seemed, and she touched his shoe to get him to look at her again. He saw something in her expression because his face scrunched and he immediately shook his head.

"No, Stiles," He pled. "I _can't!_ I just got first line, I can't sit out Saturday!"

"You have to!" She cried. "Scott, come on, you would've attacked me just a second ago! And I'm your _best_ friend! Imagine what would happen if you were faced with someone you're _supposed_ to be attacking on the field!" She paused and shook her head. "Er—not _attacking_ , but, you get my point!"

"Stiles, it's not fair," He complained, his voice straining and eyes glistening. "I don't want this!"

She looked at him sadly and shook her head. "I know. But you don't really have a choice."

* * *

What really pissed Scott off is that no one bothered to tell him how much pressure comes with getting supernatural talents. Everyone wants to talk about being stronger, faster, better. No one wants to talk about how hard it is to hide it—or how hard is it to control it.

Over the past few days, he felt like he'd been torn out of the kiddy pool and thrown into the ocean with no life jacket and both hands tied behind his back. The more that his life changed, the deeper he could feel himself sinking, and it felt like it was all completely out of his control. Just when things seemed to be going right, something else would happen that turned it into a complete disaster.

For example, he was the one to find the body in the woods, but he got bitten in the process. He has perfect health and impossible strength, and he looks great, but he's also capable of so much violence that it scares him and he can't figure out what triggers it or how to stop it from happening. He's finally starting to become popular, but Jackson has it out for him. He made first line in lacrosse, but he shouldn't even be playing. He met a girl—a _nice_ girl, a girl he likes who likes him back—but her dad wants to kill him. Literally.

And meanwhile, everyone is expecting something from him. His teachers still expect strong classwork. His mom expects good _everything_. Stiles expects him to figure out what he's doing as fast as she can. Allison expects him to get everything right with her. Derek expects—well, he's not sure, but Derek obviously expects _something_ from Scott, he knows it. Coach expects him to play the first lacrosse game. And worst of all, he expects all of these things of himself too, possibly even more than anyone else does.

And now Stiles has just informed him that the entire lacrosse team is counting on him to win the game in the wake of Jackson's injury—which, incidentally, was Scott's fault. So not only is he getting outside pressure from everyone else, his own guilt is pushing him to succeed as well.

Scott hung his head and inwardly wished, not for the first and certainly not for the last time, that he had a time turner like Hermione did in Harry Potter. He has too many things to do—too many people to please. He feels as though he's being tugged on from all directions and he can only withstand so much before he breaks.

Stiles' face looked worried as she observed her friend through the camera of the laptop. Scott was trying to think of something reassuring to say to her but he noticed her eyes flitting just to the side and focusing on something. Her brown eyes squinted and she leaned in as if to get a better look, and suddenly they popped open wide and looked straight at Scott in poorly masked fear.

"What?" Scott frowned. She opened her mouth but seemed to be afraid to say it out loud. "Stiles, what is it?"

A bright yellow dialogue box popped up on the screen and Stiles began to type out a message.

 _It looks like there—_

But the message ended there as the screen froze and buffered. Scott's frustration grew tighter, more heated as the little pinwheel spun on his screen and the suspense built. "It looks like _what?"_ Scott fumed.

Finally the screen cleared and the message quickly finished itself.

 _Is someone behind you_

Scott's blood ran cold and his eyes widened as he turned to look behind himself. In the doorway of his room loomed the broad-shouldered silhouette of a man, and it was only by some instinct that Scott was able to identify him as Derek Hale (and maybe by the leather jacket) before the man sped across the floor of his bedroom.

He grabbed Scott by the scruff of his jacket and hauled him out of his seat, throwing him into the wall. Derek pushed Scott's face and body against the wall with impossible strength and leaned in closely, his voice not even rising above a whisper and still managing to make him flinch and hyperventilate. "I saw you on the field today," He hissed in Scott's ear, making him cringe and squirm against his hold.

"What are you talking about?" Scott cried, unable to form a coherent thought.

"You shifted in front of them!" Derek bellowed. "If they find out what you are, they find out about me, about all of us! And then it isn't just the hunters after us, it's _everyone_."

Scott's heart beat so fiercely in his chest and his adrenaline was so high he felt only moments away from passing out, and he thought he might be having another asthma attack as he fought to catch his breath so he could speak through the frenzied fog of his panic. "They didn't— _see_ anything—I s-swear, I—"

"And they won't!" Derek savagely vowed, pushing him even harder into the wall until it was nearly impossible to breathe. "Because if you even _try_ to play in that game on Saturday… I'll kill you myself."

Derek's grip grew tighter—to the point of breaking Scott's bones—and for a moment he thought it was going to happen right then, right there. In the next breath, Derek was gone. The foreboding heat of Derek's body and crushing pressure at his back vanished and by the time Scott was able to push himself off the wall and turn around Derek had completely disappeared from his room, leaving no trace except a hysteric Scott who slid to the floor.

* * *

Stiles paced her room after the little display she'd just witnessed through the video-chat on her laptop. Scott hadn't wanted to talk after Derek left—in fact she could hardly get him to say goodbye before he shut his laptop and the screen went completely black—and her mind raced.

She was furious, furious that that complete asshat would threaten her friend, furious that there was absolutely nothing she could do about it, and more than anything, she was helpless.

What could she do? She didn't have the same abilities Scott had now. She didn't have _anything_ useful except an insatiable curiosity that only seemed to get her in trouble. And she had her dad, who is the Sheriff, and sometimes having a man on the inside of the police force in this town was an advantage. But she couldn't think of a way for that to help them now.

What could she say to her dad? She couldn't give him details, not without telling him about Scott, and that was not an option. The most she could do is claim it was—what—a hunch that Derek was not only back in Beacon Hills but also a potential suspect? That raised too many questions, questions her dad couldn't know the answers to. Not to mention he pretty much treated her like she was incompetent ninety-nine percent of the time anyways, so why should now be any different?

So she's on her own. And she's _way_ in over her head—she can freely admit it at this point.

But Stiles thrives under pressure. When she came home this evening, she got all of her homework done in record time because she knew she would be dying to think about this for the rest of the night. It was like a drug—the mystery—the impossibility—she would never admit it to anyone but it thrilled her.

Scott was flung into a whole other secret world that existed right alongside the reality the general public knows. This was not what Stiles had wished for at the beginning of the year—it was not what she was trying to accomplish when she dragged him into the Preserve that night. This went _beyond_ popularity. Along with all the usual problems that teenagers face, they have this whole new supernatural way of living they have to figure out how to navigate—and no one else can ever know about it. Scott is barely able to keep his head above water and he needs someone to guide him through.

Stiles is thrilled to be that person for him. Partly because it's her fault that he's in this mess in the first place, but also partly because… well, she enjoyed it.

But then there were times like this—when Stiles felt positively stumped as to what they could do. What could they do? Derek _threatened_ Scott. He wasn't exactly vague about his intentions, in fact, he was pretty freaking clear. If Scott played the game Saturday, Derek would kill him because he believes that Scott will transform and therefore will reveal the supernatural to the entire town. Possibly even kill a kid or three in the process. Or worse.

So, no big deal, right? She could handle this. She could…

She sighed and sank down to her bed, twisting her dark hair in her fingers as an inexplicable emotion raged inside. She felt pressured, trapped, hopeless, and still somehow—inspired, and because of that, overwhelmingly guilty. Responsible.

She had to do something. She could see the wreck that Scott was racing straight toward and she _knew_ that despite everything—despite her insistence, despite Derek's threat, despite his better judgment—her best friend would play in the game on Saturday. Because _someone_ had to; someone had to lead the team to victory, and they were all looking to him to do it. Because he has all these people counting on him: his mom, his coach, his teammates, the town. Allison.

Allison. That's the real issue, here. She's what will really end up driving him to do it.

Which means that _someone_ needs to be there to pick up the pieces after he ruined everything. Someone needs to try and take control of the situation before it can get out of hand, or at least steer the impending explosion to an area with the least possibility of disaster. That someone is Stiles.

She went to sit in her desk chair and opened a drawer. She picked out the pill bottle and popped the cap off, tipping a small pill into the palm of her hand and tossing it back without a second thought. Her dad liked coffee and whiskey, and she liked Adderall. The Adderall would help focus her mind. She cracked her knuckles, tucking in for another long, sleepless night.


	4. Chapter 4

_**This story is a collaboration between TheCatalystX and Hurricane.'97**_

 _ **We henceforth disclaim all rights and ownership to any characters or familiar story elements that might be found in the following chapter. Which is a fancy way to say: Teen Wolf doesn't belong to us. Duh.**_

 _ **Enjoy! :)**_

* * *

 _"Cuz everybody's got a little piece of someone they hide_  
 _It's okay, it's the way we distract until the day that we die_  
 _And though our future's gone uncertain, it's gonna be alright_  
 _'Cause though I'm leaving longing leaves me ever by your side"_

 _\- Pieces of the People We Love, by The Rapture_

* * *

 **Chapter Four:**

It didn't matter how long or how hard Stiles thought about it last night. She plotted, devised, and started over countless times. There was no solution she could think of, no clear answers at all. The only thing she knew for certain was that no matter what happened she would have Scott's back.

Things were made more complicated by the curfew that her dad apparently implemented this morning—without even mentioning it to her, by the way—and Stiles had thought their hands were well and truly tied.

That is, at least, until Scott told her that he went to Derek's house and happened to catch a whiff of some blood near a freshly buried plot of soil. And suddenly, it was as though the skies opened up and a plan became clear. Talk about a sign pointing them in the right direction.

How curious, she thought. How so very curious that Derek would have freshly dug dirt right beside his house after the second half of the body went missing.

She loved it when Scott was devious and bold. That's what this plan was—devious and bold.

The universe apparently took perverse pleasure in reminding her that she didn't have balls time and time again. Just as Stiles was starting to gain some confidence in their plan as they trekked through the doors of the hospital tonight, she turned the corner of the first hallway and all her courage fell to the ground and shattered to dust.

Scott had just gone into the morgue and Stiles was supposed to be keeping watch. But how could she be expected to focus when Lydia Martin was sitting in a chair waiting nearby?

She supposed Lydia was here for Jackson, because he was injured at practice. But that's not really at the top of her list right now, as she panicked and dove into the nearest seat and tried to remain inconspicuous. Stiles watched Lydia over the top of the brochure she'd picked up.

Scott had grown balls and done something totally out of character tonight. He _volunteered_ to go into a morgue and look at part of a dead body, when just weeks ago Stiles had to drag him out to the woods with only the slightest chance of seeing a dead body. It was either a sign of growth or a sign of stupidity—the answer was yet to be seen—but it was something different from his usual reserved self, and that was good.

And now Stiles had a chance to do something totally new and be bold. Her chance was just around the corner sitting in a seat and talking to someone on the phone. Stiles chewed nervously on her lip.

She could do it. If Scott could do it, she could do it. _Bold_. Be bold.

Stiles got up from her seat and fiddled with the brochure in her hands, trying to look like the perfect picture of cool, casual confidence as she strolled around the corner. Lydia was grinning at something and flipped a page of the magazine in her hands.

Stiles' heart sputtered in her chest and she almost chickened out.

 _Bold_ , she told herself. _Be bold._ She tapped the brochure in her hand and tiptoed in front of Lydia. When her green eyes trailed up to Stiles' face with an expression of annoyance, Stiles lost some nerve and abruptly pointed to the seat two down from her.

"Is that seat taken?"

It wasn't. Obviously, it wasn't. Lydia's purse rested in the seat immediately beside her but she left the seat next to that deliberately open so that anyone could take it if they wanted. Lydia raised an eyebrow at her and pursed her glossed lips. "Excuse me?"

Stiles' face went red. "That's—" She pointed at the seat again. "It's not—I'm just gonna—" She hurried and plopped down on the seat, staring at Lydia. "Hey," She nodded, trying to be aloof.

Lydia forced a fake polite smile on her face and gave the slightest of nods before turning away again, angling her body in the opposite direction of Stiles. She tried not to take that to heart. It's not like she could blame the girl; honestly, Stiles had just made a complete and total creep of herself. Pathetic, really.

She drummed her fingers on the wooden armrest of her chair, her mind buzzing with what to do next to try and keep the conversation alive. Stiles eyed the magazine in Lydia's lap and leaned over to try again. "Is there another one?" She asked, and Lydia visibly suppressed a grimace as she turned to Stiles impatiently, meeting her gaze dead-on.

And just like that, her courage vanished. Lydia raised her eyebrows. "What?"

Stiles swallowed roughly and tried not to stutter as she broke eye contact. "That magazine, is—is there another one on the table beside you?"

Lydia's eyes moved to the table clearly beside Stiles but she tactfully chose not to point out the obvious stack of magazines that rested untouched on it. And she didn't pilfer through the stack that rested next to her arm, either. Instead, she flipped the one in her lap shut and all but threw it at Stiles.

Stiles wasn't dexterous enough to catch it without fumbling. The magazine slid through her fingers and landed on the tiled floor with a loud slap. Stiles' face burned hot and she forced out an awkward laugh as she made a show of picking it up and laughing it off, and Lydia rolled her eyes at her.

Stiles nodded her thanks and the conversation, if you could even call it that, seemed to finally draw to a close. She looked down and was surprised to see not a fashion or gossip magazine, but the cover of Popular Science in her hands. Stiles ached to comment on the nerdy magazine that Lydia had been enjoying, but the redhead had her fingers pressed into the earpiece and had completely turned her back to Stiles in dismissal. It seemed redundant and maybe just a shade of desperate to try to disturb her at this point, so Stiles sighed and slouched in her seat.

Surprisingly, the magazine kept her attention as she waited for Scott to return. It did, at least, until Jackson came down the hall and Lydia slinked up to him and started petting him.

But as Stiles listened from behind the magazine she realized that Lydia was up to her same old manipulative tricks—using her feminine persuasion to tell Jackson that he needed a second cortisone shot before the game if he had any hope to be successful enough to 'go pro.' Stiles' eyes flicked down to the magazine in her hand, which talked about the theoretical future of sports and athletes, and she wondered if the magazine had inspired Lydia's comments or if she had already plotted it from the moment she learned of Jackson's injury.

Scott scared the shit out of Stiles by snatching the magazine from her hand and discarding it onto the table beside her. Stiles was altogether startled and eager as she practically levitated from the seat to ask Scott what he found in the morgue.

"It was the same," He told her with the ghost of a disturbed expression lingering on his features. Stiles gestured pointedly at his vague explanation and Scott elaborated. "The smell that I caught at Derek's house was the same as the smell of the body in the morgue."

Stiles shuddered. "I knew it," She hissed. "That freak killed her! Scott, he needs to be stopped!"

"I know," Scott grimly agreed as they turned to make a quick and graceful exit from the hospital. "But how?"

"I have a plan, but Scott, listen. This isn't about lacrosse," She told him quietly. "We aren't stopping him so that you can play in some stupid game. This is bigger than that."

"I _know_ ," Scott said for the second time, this time more defensive. "You didn't see what he did to that body, Stiles," He told her with a haunted grimace. "You didn't _see_ what I saw."

"Sure," She smartly quipped. "Go ahead, rub it in some more!"

Scott frowned at her macabre sense of reasoning. "I didn't _want_ to see it Stiles," He scolded her. "Trust me, neither do you."

"Yeah, sure," She waved him off. "So this is what we need: a flashlight, a backpack, and two shovels."

* * *

The entire plan depended on how fast they could dig. _Dig_. Dirt, with their bare hands and a shovel. Stiles, not the weakest girl in Beacon Hills, was certainly no werewolf, and for all her planning she didn't think to bring gloves.

What kind of person doesn't bring gloves to a crime scene? There are all _sorts_ of things that could go wrong right now—and don't be fooled—Stiles' mind is racing with all the possibilities and its causing her such crippling anxiety that she's transcended nervous and is now functioning at some higher level of consciousness.

Like, she's totally numb, and even as she is constantly worried about the very real possibility of being caught before they can even find the body or _whatever_ is buried here, she doesn't allow herself to feel anything about what those consequences would mean.

It doesn't matter. She's sweating, her back is aching and her arms are burning from exertion, and she's breathing so hard that she's pretty sure she's on the cusp of a panic attack that she can't take the time to acknowledge or properly work through—but she doesn't stop.

Meanwhile Scott is just as fine as ever. Well, except for his incessant bitching. He points out almost every two shovelfuls that they're running out of time, and Stiles is about three more comments away from knocking him out with her shovel and finishing the job herself.

Except that she needs him right now. For a thousand reasons, too many to get into, but most importantly because his hands are incapable of forming blisters and he hasn't even broken a sweat. He probably wouldn't even be short-breathed if not for the crippling anxiety he's vocalizing every two seconds.

She felt her patience fraying and her nerves were raw. But _man_ , did she feel alive. She had to inwardly admit, this was sort of fun.

"What if he catches us?" Scott asked, his breath steaming in the cold night air.

Stiles pushed her hair out of her face with the back of her wrist and glared at him briefly. "I have a plan for that too." She shoveled more dirt and Scott shrugged at her in question. "If he comes back then we split up and whoever he catches first, too bad."

The fact that she was out of breath and her throat was burning for water even as she said it didn't escape her notice, but she didn't say a word about it. The truth is that if Derek came back and they indeed took off running, there's no doubt which one of them Derek would catch first. It would be her. She resigned herself to that bitter reality the moment Scott was bitten. She's scared, sure, but that's not relevant.

"That's a stupid plan," Scott commented, and Stiles shrugged her shoulder.

"I never said it was good," She told him, returning to digging. "But it's—"

Her shovel struck something dully, and Scott yelled at her to stop. She put her hand up and pulled away briefly with Scott, and for a moment they just stared down at the exact spot in the dirt that she'd hit.

There it is. There's the body.

Another beat passed before Stiles finally crouched down to dig with her fingers through the loose dirt.

"Hurry!" Scott insisted, and she desperately wished for three arms so she could smack the back of his head. She found a rope, tied around a sheet, wrapped around something soft and yet firm, still mostly submerged in dirt. She pulled at the rope but it was all in knots.

"I'm _trying_ ," She irritably snapped at Scott. "Did he have to tie like nine hundred knots in this stupid thing?"

He shifted anxiously at his feet beside her and it grated her already tender nerves, and she cursed under her breath, fed up. Finally she just grasped the rope between her fingers and yanked.

Scott fell back with a loud yelp and Stiles felt her face go white and her blood run cold at what the sheet revealed once it was yanked back.

The head of a black wolf, its mouth open and tongue lolled out, and its eyes milky and grey.

The sweet, potent smell of death was impossible to mistake now that she saw the evidence in front of her and her mind was filled with images of the scene from the Godfather where the horse's severed head had been hidden beneath the sheets of Jack Woltz's bed.

For a moment neither of them could speak beyond screaming a string of curses and _what the fuck what the fuck what the FUCK,_ until finally, Stiles broke the cycle. "This doesn't make sense!" She pointed accusingly down at the wolf's head. "That's not—why would he have _that_ buried in a sheet!? Where's the body?"

Scott looked back at her with wide eyes, just as clueless as she was, and shrugged helplessly. "How should I know?"

"You said they smelled the same!" She blamed. He threw his hands out.

" _I don't know!"_

She finally shook her head. "We have to get out of here," She said, grabbing his arm to pull him along as she stood from her spot on the ground. "Help me cover this up…"

In the frenzy of finally discovering the wolf's head, the flashlight had been kicked. It was now lying between her and Scott, pointing off in the distance and spotlighting something poking out of the ground beside the large hole they'd just dug.

She froze and frowned at the purple and green flower that protruded from the soil. In the midst of all her research about werewolves, there was a lot of lore about poison and ways to defeat or suppress a werewolf's abilities. One of those ways was actually a flower—or more accurately, an herb. Specifically, wolfsbane.

And one of those very flowers stood like a small sign sticking out of the ground with both arms up, like it jumped up and down and screamed _Look, Stiles! Look over here at me!_

"What?" Scott said, catching the expression on her face. "What is it?" He tried to follower her gaze but he just seemed lost as his eyes flitted straight over the flower.

"See that?" Stiles pointed at the purple petaled vegetation.

"What about it?"

"I think it's wolfsbane…" She murmured.

Scott scrunched his face and shook his head at her. "What's that?"

She glared at him, feeling both unsurprised and exasperated. "Seriously? You are _so_ unprepared for this," She told him. "You're lucky you have me!"

"I _know_ ," Scott sounded incredibly annoyed as he agreed, and watched as she went to pull the wolfsbane from the ground like he couldn't understand why she was so interested in picking a flower while they're busy digging up bodies.

She pulled at the flower until the whole thing popped from the ground, roots and all, and was shocked to find that the rope was somehow connected with the roots. Encouraged and thrilled at the feeling of discovering yet another clue—perhaps even a clear answer to the giant question of the wolf's head in the hole in the ground—she dropped the flower to the dirt and yanked at the rope.

Stiles followed it around and around. It circled the hole they'd dug, or she supposed it circled the wolf head that was buried. The circle grew smaller and smaller and the more she revealed the clearer the picture became—a spiral. All leading back to the wolf head. By the time it was all pulled free and Stiles was left with a tangle of rope at her feet, she looked up at the gasp that came from Scott's lips.

The wolf head was gone. Or, not gone, just… not a wolf anymore. The top half of a girl was in its place. She had her arms tucked under her like she was simply lying down in the hole, her head turned slightly, and eerily, she appeared to be glaring straight up at them from her grave.

Stiles stepped back and grabbed Scott's arm in shock. "That's—" She blurted. "That's more like it."

Scott threw her a weird look and she just looked back at him grimly.

"What do we do now?" Scott asked. She looked back down at the girl and set her jaw.

"Now we call my dad."

"And say _what?"_ His eyes went wide and she felt a muscle jump in her jaw.

"We found the other half of the body."

* * *

She'd be lying if she said she didn't feel satisfied. Once the shock wore off, smug would be another word that came to mind. Not that she would show it, of course, but there's nothing _quite_ like the pay off of helping her dad solve a crime. If she was too obvious about her glee then her dad would shut her out completely and force her to leave before she had the chance to revel in it just a little.

And frankly, she was feeling bold. That courage that was so hard to muster the night before seemed to ooze out of her pores now, and she didn't even feel sorry when she slid into the passenger seat of the cruiser.

"I'm not scared of you," She declared to Derek Hale, who was handcuffed in the back seat. It felt a bit like traipsing up to a grizzly's cage and teasing it.

Of _course_ she wasn't afraid, he was restrained in broad daylight with a dozen cops roaming around—and besides, it's not like she got in the back seat with him, which she could've done.

Derek lifted his head and _holy God._ The look in his eyes when he glared at her—it wiped away all of her bravado so fast that it made her head spin, and her heart was racing out of fear now instead of exhilaration.

She swallowed roughly and his lips tightened into a frown so tight they were little more than a thin line on his chin. "Well, fine," She relented. "Maybe I am afraid. But it doesn't matter. I just wanna know something…"

His chin lifted at that and he didn't respond as he fixed her with the totality of his heated glare, holding nothing back. "The girl you killed?" She looked him over to try and make herself seem braver, but she's not sure that it fooled him at all as his glare intensified and his nostrils flared. "She was a werewolf." Stiles watched his reaction closely but he didn't seem to move at all save for his steady, controlled breathing. "Wasn't she? But a different kind, right? She could change into a wolf, and I know Scott can't do that."

Nothing; no reaction. A beat passed and Stiles ignored everything inside that screamed at her not to ask the question that burned in her mind, but she had to. She _had_ to.

"Is that why you killed her?" She poked, and he finally responded.

If anything his expression only darkened and though he didn't entirely take the bait and explode like she'd prepared herself for, he calmly took a breath before responding. "Why are you so worried about me when it's your _friend_ who's the problem?" Derek asked, his voice cool and distant as he threw Scott a glance out the window.

She didn't take her eyes away from him but she frowned and licked her lips, perplexed, withdrawing slightly as he continued.

"When he shifts on the field what do you think they're gonna do?" Derek tilted his head at her almost condescendingly, which raised her ire a notch. "Huh? Just keep cheering him on?" He sneered.

Stiles pressed her lips together and Derek shook his head.

"I can't stop him from playing, but _you_ can," He looked her over and she suddenly wanted to cross her arms and hide, but she also didn't want to give him the satisfaction. He leaned forward and she felt her eyes widen and it took every shred of willpower she had not to flinch or lean away. "And trust me…" He looked her over again. "You want to."

She gaped at him and was trying to think of what to say when suddenly the door was ripped open and a hand plunged into the car to tear her out of it. Her dad slammed the door shut and literally _dragged_ her a good distance away from the car before throwing her down. "There, _stand!"_ He snarled, his blue eyes wild with rage.

She grappled to clear her mind from the conversation she'd just had so that she could try to focus on her dad, but she was struggling.

Her dad's temper appeared to settle once she sighed and he looked her over and seemed to decide she was physically unharmed. "What the hell did you think you were doing?"

She put her hands out defensively. "I'm just trying to help!" She exclaimed.

" _How?_ By trapping yourself in a car with a suspect who buried a body beside his house?"

She paused to scratch an eyebrow thoughtfully. "…If I say I won't do it again, can we forget this ever happened?"

This seemed to aggravate him more and he stiffened before launching into full-on interrogation mode, and she braced for impact. "What the hell were you two doing out here anyways? This is private property!"

"I know—we were—Scott lost his inhaler, okay? I was just trying to help him find it!"

"What?" Sheriff scrunched his face incredulously. "When did he lose his inhaler?"

"A few days ago!" She told him with a sweeping gesture of her arm. "Somewhere out here which is why we were looking and that's when we found the body, okay?"

"He lost it a few days ago," He parroted, his hands on his hips, and she nodded quickly. "That night I found you out here?" She threw her arms up in tired enthusiasm, like she was grateful that he was finally catching on. "When you were out here looking for the first half of the body and you told me Scott wasn't with you?"

"Yes!" She exclaimed and then she froze, her eyes wide. She peered at him from the corner of her eyes. "I mean, no. I mean— _crap_."

"Crap," Sheriff nodded with a roll of his eyes. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, shaking his head. "Well you managed to find the body, did you at least find his inhaler?"

"Well—uhhh," She glanced involuntarily back at Derek, thinking of him tossing it to Scott, and took a breath. "Yep."

"We're going to talk about you lying to me and all of _this_ ," He said, gesturing around the property and possibly to the Preserve in general. "Tonight."

Stiles licked her teeth, her hands on her hips as she sniffed roughly and didn't look directly at her dad.

"Get the hell out of here," He told her in almost disgust, and she didn't wait for him to change his mind as she quickly darted around him and towards her jeep.

* * *

In all fairness, what she said before the game wasn't the best advice she'd ever given Scott. What had she been thinking? Telling someone who's worried not to worry about it? That's the worst thing to say! But she didn't stop there; oh no… it was like word vomit. As she spoke and listed all the things he shouldn't worry about she couldn't stop. She's got a thing for lists; that's no surprise, and she's used to the panic they usually induce, but for Scott, hearing them aloud had certainly not helped.

In fact she was quite certain that she had only made him feel more pressured. Basically at this moment in her life Stiles felt like she had failed spectacularly at being a best friend on every level. If she was braver, she would have tied him up and thrown him down a dark hole somewhere to keep him from playing. If she was kinder, she would have offered to help him in some way. And if she was smarter, she would have found a way to prove Derek was the one to kill his sister.

But none of those things are true, and she could see them falling closer and closer to ruin. Scott half-shifted on the field, but he didn't attack anyone. He certainly didn't fly under the radar either, literally tearing a hole in the goal at one point from the force of his throw. The other team had been so afraid that they passed him the ball… on purpose. And he managed to get to the locker room and control himself before he shifted completely.

She supposed, if she was being perfectly honest, the only silver linings so far had been his superhuman abilities (she doesn't care what anyone said; his abilities are awesome) and Allison. They kissed after the game. That's probably the best thing that's ever happened to Scott, admittedly even better than the bite.

And even _that_ had possibly been ruined. Scott described the dream he'd had in depth, sparing her no gory details. He described from the moment he and Allison were kissing to the moment that he dragged her through the bus by the ankles with the intent to kill her and the horrifying way he found that he didn't want to stop.

Not a full breath had passed between them when they discovered the bloody crime scene on the bus at school, and her friend snapped.

Stiles was trying to remain calm. Her mind raced with possible explanations. All the psychology she'd ever studied told her that dreams are just … subconscious metaphors! Not _literal_ premonitions or memories.

Why couldn't it have been a normal nightmare that came true, she mused to herself. Why couldn't he have dreamt that he showed up to school naked? Why this? Why so specific? Stiles wished she believed that it was coincidence but—no way.

Not that she was about to admit that to Scott. "Don't panic!" She tried, (there she went again, telling a panicking person not to panic, like she told him not to worry) but Scott turned away and started wandering through the halls in a manic daze, absolutely terrified at the idea that he had actually _killed_ Allison. And Stiles had to admit that her stomach churned with the possibility; and yet she knew in her heart it couldn't be true, that her friend would never do such a thing while unconscious or otherwise.

She was just checking around Lydia's locker when the principal came over the PA system, announcing that even though it appeared that someone was slaughtered on a bus last night, that didn't mean that classes were cancelled. She snorted bitterly, amused.

"Move," A feminine voice ordered.

Stiles blinked out of her thoughts and her eyes focused on Lydia. She sputtered and looked around, immediately scrambling out of the shorter girl's way. "Sorry," She quickly managed.

Lydia didn't acknowledge her apology. She simply opened her locker and began to gather her things for class. Apparently feeling the weight of Stiles' gaze, Lydia turned her head and stared openly at Stiles expectantly. "Do you need something?" She asked a tone that suggested she better say no and leave.

"No, you just…" She looked Lydia's face over, noticing how perfectly she kept the mask on, hiding her true potential from everyone's view. How effortless she made it look. Stiles admired it. She envied it; she wanted to learn how to do it. She wanted to see what Lydia looked like without it on. But she said none of this. "Sorry," she said, and quickly turned around and left when Jackson warily approached them with a sneer on his face meant just for Stiles.

"What did _she_ want?" Jackson wanted to know. Stiles walked slow enough to hear Lydia's response, keeping her gaze glued to the white Adidas on her feet.

"Who?" Lydia innocently asked.

"Stilinski," Jackson explained as though talking to someone that was slow. "The girl that was just here? She's McCall's friend, right? What did she want?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, Jackson," Lydia impatiently told him. "She was just standing in front of my locker and then she left. Do you really need a play by play?"

Stiles turned around and caught sight of Jackson's glare as he frowned at her. Quickly, she turned and hurried around the corner down the next hall.

* * *

"We don't even know that it was a human," Stiles reasoned, moving her legs around on the stool to face Scott better. She hated Biology and was glad to use their newest drama to ignore the lecture. They weren't at the same table but they were at tables right next to each other, which made it relatively easy to speak to one another, but made whispering a practical impossibility. "It could be something else's blood."

"Something else?" Scott frowned. "Something else, like what?"

"Like a bunny," She suggested with no small degree of sadism as a demented smirk pulled on her lips at Scott's disturbed expression.

"You think I would eat a bunny? _Raw?"_

Sarcasm dripped from her words. "No, I think you stopped to bake it in your little werewolf oven." She shook her head at him. "I don't know; you're the one who can't remember anything!"

Scott frowned and looked away as he reflected briefly, agonizing as he tried to recall any single detail that might explain what was going on.

"Miss Stilinski," Mr. Harris called from the front of the class, his hands on his hips in front of the green chalkboard. And then he proceeded to both publicly shame them for interrupting, and forcibly separate them from each other, scattering them across the room.

Stiles was forced to sit next to Jackson, who was scowling side-long at her. She frowned at him but did her best to ignore his constant glare stuck on the side of her face, slouching behind the protection of her book.

Another few moments of this passed before Stiles finally broke. "What?"

"You know something," Jackson accused. Stiles waited for him to elaborate and when he just stared at her as if waiting for her to explain herself, she shook her head.

"What?"

"You… _know_ something." Jackson slowly repeated, enunciating each syllable as he leaned in to murmur lowly to her. "Your little friend is cheating, isn't he? I don't know how yet but he's cheating at lacrosse and you two think you've got everyone fooled."

Stiles blinked and Jackson didn't give her the chance to respond.

"Well you don't," He continued, sounding vaguely paranoid, which was weird coming from the boy who was usually so calm and collected. "I _see_ you," He whispered. "You're not as clever as you think you are, and sniffing around my girlfriend isn't exactly helping your case."

She stared at him for another beat before his words finally soaked in, and she couldn't help it. Stiles had to swallow a laugh and she couldn't fully suppress her smirk (after dealing so closely with someone as terrifying as Derek, Jackson was frankly embarrassing himself by trying to intimidate her) and she leaned in to respond just as quietly. "You sound _crazy_ ," She informed him.

His eye twitched and he stiffened, not moving from his whispering position. He opened his mouth to respond but the teacher snapped at him to be quiet or else he'd be moved too. Jackson fixed Stiles with a heated glare and finally retreated, and she couldn't help but feel intensely amused that he was so bothered.

For the remainder of the class, Jackson would pause from listening to the lecture so he could brood and study Stiles with an accusing, scrutinizing gaze. She winked at him one time and that only seemed to make him even angrier, which amused her to no end. Unfortunately her amusement was brought to a screeching halt when Jennifer got up from her seat to shout that the police had found something on the bus.

The class collectively abandoned their seats to go glue themselves to the windows. Outside in the parking lot, they watched as paramedics carted a body strapped to a gurney out of the back of the bus and towards an ambulance.

Stiles' stomach felt heavy and any lightness she had gathered from her interactions with Jackson were dashed. Scott was speechless beside her, and they were both undoubtedly realizing the same thing. That's no bunny.

The body suddenly sat up with a scream and it became apparent that the wounded man was traumatized and incoherent. He grabbed at the paramedics for dear life, screaming like he was still being attacked, and she smacked Scott's arm encouragingly. "See?" She whispered. "That's not dead! Dead people can't do that! That's good! He's alive!"

Scott wasn't convinced. He looked shamed as he backed away from the crowd and launched himself into self-imposed exile. "Stiles," He said miserably, pulling her attention. " _I_ did that."

* * *

Stiles and Scott sat at their usual spot at lunch. "This doesn't mean anything about going out with Allison tomorrow," Stiles reassured him.

Scott blinked at her. "I wasn't thinking that it did…" He paused. "But now I am!"

"Well," She put her hand up even as he panicked. "Hey, hang on, would you just listen to me?"

His panic, though coming on fast, was put on hold as he gave her his undivided attention and seemed desperate to hear what she had to say that would make him feel better.

Stiles still held her hand out as she thought it over, her nose twitching in thought. She rubbed her thumb and index finger together, her lips parted uselessly as she stared at him. "I got nothin'," She finally admitted, causing Scott to roll his eyes and sigh in exasperation.

"Stiles! This is serious!" He exclaimed.

"I know! What? I'm taking this very seriously! Hey, you have no idea how much sleep I've missed trying to figure this crap out; I'm just as worried about all this as you are. I'm probably _more_ worried because I don't have the distraction of shifting to keep me occupied."

Scott threw her a withering look but she didn't back down or apologize about her words because she honestly believed them to be true. He gets a break from his worrying when his instincts take over—she does not.

"Yeah, and yet neither of us seem to be coming up with any solutions," Scott bitterly noted. Stiles stiffened defensively but Scott ignored her. "Maybe it's time we get some help."

"By doing what, consulting our magical werewolf godmother?" She smartly asked.

"No," Scott shrugged, glancing away. "Not a godmother… but maybe a teacher."

Stiles focused on him with an unimpressed face as she worked through what he was saying, reading between the lines. She reached out to smack his arm. "Scott! Really? You want to go to _Derek?"_

"He knows more than we do!"

"How do you know he's going to know anything about _this_ though?" She pushed.

"Because," Scott reasoned.

"Oh!" She smartly quipped before he had the chance to elaborate. "Well why didn't you just say so?"

Scott scowled and waved his hand as if to physically clear her words from the air. "During the full moon, he wasn't freaking out! He was in total control, while I was running around in the middle of the night and attacking some totally innocent guy."

"But you don't _know_ that," Stiles countered.

"I don't _not_ know that!" He sat back and sighed, shaking his head. "I can't go out with Allison, I have to cancel."

"No, you're not cancelling your whole life, Scott!" Stiles had changed her tune from the last time they spoke on the matter. "We'll figure it out," She assured him and resisted the urge to emphasize that _they_ would figure it out. Not Derek— _them_. Alone. Independently.

She raised her bottle of water to her lips. Before Scott could respond someone put their tray down. They looked up and Stiles choked on the swig of water she'd taken when she realized it was Lydia. "Figure what out?" She casually asked, like this was a regular occurrence and she's usually apart of their conversations.

While Stiles continued to choke on her water and started quietly hyperventilating, Scott glanced at Lydia in hesitant confusion as he answered. "Uhh… Just, uh, homework…"

She looked between them with thinly veiled suspicion but apparently decided she didn't actually care, smiling sweetly and humming as though she understood. Scott and Stiles exchanged a wide eyed, confused look of bewilderment as another person from her posse joined the fray, setting their food down beside Stiles this time.

The girl, Stiles thought it might have been Amanda or something, raised an eyebrow at her and Stiles frowned and her eyes went wide as she turned to Scott in silent exclamation.

Suddenly they were surrounded. All at once, their usually secluded, empty table filled with people who haven't spoken to them once this year. Danny took the other seat beside Stiles, barely tossing her a glance. Some dude that Stiles had literally never seen before sat at the head of the table between Lydia and Danny, and she almost passed out when Jackson strolled up and commanded the boy to get up.

"Why do _I_ have to move?" the boy whined, and gestured to Danny. "Why doesn't he ever have to move?"

"Because I don't stare at his girlfriend's coin slot," Danny smugly explained. Stiles cringed at his euphemism for cleavage, having been unaware of the turn-of-phrase until this moment in her life. And what a strange moment it was.

She felt like everything was changing, like they'd somehow slipped into an alternate universe where up was down, fire was cold, and Jackson Whittemore and Lydia Martin voluntarily ate lunch with them.

Danny was huge. He took up every inch of his seat and his arms almost invaded her space as he leaned over his tray and held a bright green apple in his hand. Apparently he adjusted to the change in seating arrangement like it was nothing, gracefully starting the lunch-conversation out running. "I hear they're saying it was some type of animal attack," He said, referring to the bloody crime scene of the bus. "Probably a cougar?"

As soon as she heard this bit of information, Stiles pulled her phone out. Danny had said that ' _they_ were saying', implying that there was a public statement made by the authorities to the press. So she quickly pulled up Beacon Hills' local paper to investigate further.

Jackson kept his eyes down on his tray as he replied, apparently pretending that the rest of the table wasn't there. "I heard mountain lion."

"A cougar _is_ a mountain lion," Lydia instantly corrected. Stiles smirked as Jackson frowned at her and Lydia's eyes widened marginally before she plastered a fake confused look on her face and glanced around self-consciously. "Isn't it?" She added uncertainly.

"Who cares?" Jackson sneered. "The guy is probably some homeless tweaker who was gonna die anyway."

"Actually," Stiles interrupted, drawing a mixture of annoyed and curious gazes. "I just found out who it is…" She held her phone out to play the video of the news coverage, and they all listened intently as the news anchor explained that the victim was named Garrison Myers and had in fact survived the attack. He was currently at the hospital in critical condition.

And then Scott revealed that he knew the man. Apparently Garrison Myers used to drive Scott's bus when he lived with his dad. Stiles sat back in her seat and tried not to let the bit of information damn her best friend, but she couldn't help it. She had really been hoping that this dude turned out to be a no one. At least then they could trick themselves into believing it was pure coincidence.

But now? While knowing that Scott used to ride the victim's bus as a child didn't exactly provide them with a motive, it did create reasonable doubt. And Stiles had to take a moment to process this before she could return her focus to the conversation happening around her.

"—do you… _want_ to hang out, like us and them… together?" Scott was asking Allison, a look of pure panic written across his face. Stiles covered her mouth in horror and squeezed her eyes shut to keep herself from screaming no.

"Yeah," Allison seemed to shrug good naturedly, and shook her head at Scott as if she couldn't see why not. "I guess, I mean… sounds fun."

She smiled at the Lydia and Jackson behind Scott, and Stiles bit her lip to keep from commenting.

"You know what else sounds fun?" Jackson asked. He picked up a fork. "Stabbing myself in the face with this fork."

 _Sounds fun to me too_ , Stiles darkly mused. Everyone at the table turned to frown at her and she froze, her eyes going wide. Did she say that out loud?

Jackson's heated glare was evidence enough that she had in fact said that out loud. Stiles smiled fakely at him and shrugged a shoulder. "I mean… not stabbing you with a fork, _obviously_ ," She laughed nervously as Lydia watched her with an offended expression, clearing her throat. "I just meant that…" She gripped the table tightly with her fingers, hating every syllable of every word even as she said it. "It would be fun to go out—right Danny?"

She turned her attention on to him and he looked uninterested as he raised his eyebrows at her from where he slouched back in his seat and picked at his apple. He lowered the apple to his lap and glanced around at everyone. "Uh… you mean… like, _all_ of us?"

Stiles kept the neutral expression on her face so tightly she was sure that she looked about to snap. "Yes," she shrilly agreed, causing Danny to frown at her. "Why not?"

Jackson snorted loudly but his girlfriend suddenly gasped and exclaimed over the top of him. "Bowling!" She declared, and Stiles felt her shoulders relax slightly now that the attention was taken off of her. "We could go bowling, Jackson, you love bowling!"

"Yeah, when there's actual competition," Jackson scoffed.

" _Dude_ ," Danny put his hands out and Jackson immediately seemed to regret his choice of words, shrugging at his friend apologetically.

"See?" Allison pointed at Danny and grinned triumphantly. "You'll have him for competition. And besides, who says we aren't good at bowling?" She turned back to Scott with her eyebrows raised. "You're good, aren't you Scott?"

Stiles slid a look of amusement over at Danny and Danny caught it, turning his gaze over to Scott in mild interest. "Yes," Scott falsely decreed. "In fact, I'm a _great_ bowler."

Stiles kept her gaze on Danny and grinned discreetly as she gave a subtle shake of her head. Danny snorted and the rest of lunch was spent planning the night out. They would all meet at the bowling alley at seven. Danny and Stiles should feel free to bring a date. And Jackson snorted derisively at the concept of someone wanting to go on a date with Stiles, which made her jaw clench and her temper flare.

* * *

"What do we do?" Stiles panicked as they walked down the stairs after school, the first moment they'd had alone since lunch. "What do we _do?_ "

"I don't know! We can't bowl!" Scott twisted his hands in his hair and Stiles put her hand up and came to an abrupt stop, snorting at the suggestion.

"Wait," She smirked. "Yes, I can."

Scott scrunched his eyebrows dubiously.

"Dude, I can bowl! I can kick your ass up and down those lanes!"

Scott rolled his eyes. "Fine, whatever, you can bowl! But that doesn't change the fact that I can't, and that we are now somehow stuck going out in public with Jackson and Lydia!"

"This is a disaster!" She threw her hands in the air. "The only upside to this whole thing is that Danny seems to like me."

Scott mulled this over as Stiles continued, apparently on a roll.

"This is our new priority number one!"

Scott paused and raised an eyebrow. "Well…"

Stiles shook her head. "No, listen to me, we can't _both_ be stuck doing this, okay? If something goes wrong and we decide that you won't be able to handle going out with Jackson without completely freaking out and going all Hulk, we have _no_ bail plan! If it was just you, you could bail; say you got sick. But now we're _both_ going! Who's gonna help you? We can't _both_ bail, Scott, not without being totally obvious about it!"

Scott put his face in his hands and groaned miserably. "What are we gonna do?"

"We'll figure it out," Stiles reassured him. "We'll think of something. We have twenty four hours, we can think of something!"

* * *

They couldn't think of anything. Not a _damn_ thing. Stiles couldn't help but think she was more equipped to deal with sneaking into crime scenes and coming out the other side unscathed. As she had just proven to Scott, she made a great get-away driver.

But thinking of socially acceptable excuses to get out of a group outing? Stiles' nearly complete lack of social life up to this point had done very little to prepare her for these situations.

She can lose a police car that was tailing her, no problem. She can cause a really great distraction, in a pinch, and let her best friend escape safely with whatever they might be trying to steal. And for the record, no matter what Scott said, Stiles is pretty damn sure she would make a fan-freaking-tastic Batman.

But she had no idea how to deal with being roped into a group date with Lydia's posse. Crap, she really needed to stop calling it a date. If this is a date, this is the absolute worst date that Stiles had ever been on, and that's saying something.

There's something particularly tragic about this picture. Never in a million years did Stiles ever think this would come to pass. She's sitting on one of the brightly colored seats by their bowling lane. Beside her, Danny took up so much room that she was actually leaning away to avoid brushing arms with him _again_.

And she was currently doing her best not to watch while Jackson pulled that completely cliché move of 'teaching' Lydia how to bowl by wrapping his arms around her from behind and showing her how to throw the ball. Basically a poorly-disguised excuse to cop-a-feel in public.

She sighed heavily to herself and yanked the laces of her ugly bowling shoes a little too tightly. She sat back and looked at Danny, who was currently typing furiously on his phone and snickering every few seconds at whoever was responding to him. Stiles put her arm across the seat behind him and sniffed casually. "So Danny…" She started, drawing his uninterested gaze. "You bowl much?"

His dark eyes flitted to her arm that was still stretched behind him, and she quickly withdrew it and tried to cover it up by propping her head up on her fist. "Oh yeah," Danny smartly replied in a tone that made Stiles think he was lying. "All the time. My boyfriend is on a competitive bowling team and sometimes I'll travel with them to their competitions."

She couldn't tell if he was being honest or not. "You've got a boyfriend?"

He looked up from his phone to glance at her but didn't respond. She pursed her lips and looked down at her lap, her knee bouncing anxiously.

Lydia and Jackson managed to knock down at least three pins, but that was all. She was up next.

"Wish me luck," she muttered under her breath, and Danny did, but his tone was so flat that she was pretty sure he didn't care one way or the other.

Scott's wish of luck was much more genuine. She looked over her shoulder and saw him smiling enthusiastically, and Allison threw her a thumbs up. Stiles couldn't help but sneak a glance at Lydia before she turned away, but the red head simply raised her eyebrows at her and crossed her arms while Jackson pulled her in closely.

The bowling ball that Stiles picked out was silver. It said it weighed eight pounds, but Stiles was pretty sure it was closer to ten.

She got a spare. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than Lydia who was the only other one to have gone so far. Scott cheered behind her and when she returned to her seat Danny managed to look at least marginally impressed. Jackson and Lydia were completely ignoring her.

When she pulled out the small travel bottle of Germ-X and drenched enough into her hand for it to drip onto the slick wooden floors, she was surprised to see Danny's large palm held out in question.

He saw her expression of surprise and wiggled his fingers. "Please?"

She deposited a coin-sized dollop into his hand and he gave her a real smile as he rubbed the hand sanitizer in.

Feeling somewhat less uncomfortable, Stiles quietly settled back into her seat and she couldn't help but notice that Danny had finally put his phone away.

Danny and Allison both got strikes. When it was Jackson's turn, Danny commented on the weight of Jackson's ball and claimed it was light enough for a toddler to throw. Taking that as a personal challenge, Jackson tried to use Danny's ball, but his friend would hear none of it. So they were forced to wait for Jackson to go choose a heavier ball.

"You did that on purpose," Stiles accused, and Danny hid a smile as he tilted his head at her.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Danny shrugged. "I was just trying to keep the game fair."

"His ball weighed eleven pounds!"

"And mine weighs fifteen," Danny raised his eyebrows. "Trust me, if Jackson made fun of you for how much you could bench, you'd have said something too."

"Jackson benches more than you?" Stiles gaped, looking between the two boys as Jackson strutted back and showed off his sixteen-pound ball. Danny's face was curtained but she thought she could sense a certain amount of smugness as he replied.

"Every week," He confirmed. "And every week, he strains a different muscle, because he's lifting too much."

Stiles' gaze drifted back to Jackson and she looked thoughtfully at his shoulder as he drew his arm back and then launched the bowling ball down the lane. "Won't this be bad for his injury?"

"Probably," Danny casually nodded, and when Stiles gaped at him he simply grinned. "What? Are _you_ going to say something?"

Stiles scowled at the thought and looked away, and after that she kept quiet on the matter. When Scott got two gutter balls and Stiles put her head in her hands, Danny began to snicker beside her. She peeked out from behind her fingers and he had the decency to try and stifle his amusement, but she could still see his dimples poking through as he shook his head at her.

"Scott can't actually bowl, can he?"

Stiles smirked. "Jackson can't _actually_ bench more than you, can he?"

Danny and Stiles grinned at each other, and suddenly an unspoken truce was thrown up like a white flag between them. For the rest of the night they made fun of their respective best friends, pointing out ways that they were idiots.

After Allison gave Scott her mysterious little pep-talk and Scott started killing the rest of them, Lydia asked Scott for some pointers. Of course he declined, since he was on a date with Allison and they all knew Lydia was asking for another one of those cheesy-moves that Jackson had pulled on her earlier.

"Uh—" Stiles choked as she spoke up and lifted her finger to catch Lydia's attention. "I could show you some tricks, Lydia."

Jackson sneered. "Stay in your lane, Stilinski. She doesn't need help from a loser like you."

"Shut up, Jackson," Danny interjected, surprising them all. "Go help your girlfriend."

Jackson masked his surprise and embarrassment with a scowl, and Danny rolled his eyes at his childishness. But when Jackson started to stand up and help her Lydia stopped him with her hand in the air.

"How about I just try this on my own?" Lydia's voice was soured with irritation and Jackson gaped at her. Stiles knew it wasn't true, but she liked to think maybe Lydia was punishing him for being such a prick to her.

Danny didn't say a word to Stiles, or even look at her as she watched him from her seat. She was curious, and confused why Danny stuck up for her. But grateful, and she definitely like this development. Scott was painfully oblivious—too wrapped up in making goo-goo eyes and holding Allison's hand to pay attention.

And when Lydia got a strike, Stiles cheered loudly and almost leaped out of her seat in enthusiasm. Lydia was so smug that she even accepted Stiles' high five as she strut her way back to her seat and dropped next to Jackson. "I… think I'm getting the hang of it," She pursed her lips in satisfaction and wrapped one of her perfectly-coiled ringlets around her finger, watching her score jump on the scoreboard.

Stiles and Danny exchanged an amused glance when Lydia threw Jackson a narrow-eyed grin of cheekiness. Stiles crossed her arms and sat back; content with how the _not_ -date had been going so far.

Allison leaned forward to murmur quietly to Lydia, but when Lydia leaned forward they ended up almost smack in front of Stiles so she caught every word. "Maybe you should stop sucking just for his benefit," Allison whispered.

"Trust me," Lydia snorted. "I do _plenty_ of sucking _just_ for his benefit…"

And just like that, the good-mood was wiped from Stiles' face. She was rooted in her seat, completely gob-smacked and maybe just a touch devastated. Danny's giant arm nudged her shoulder and she blinked rapidly as he spoke to her. "I'm hungry. Are you hungry? Let's get some food."

They were technically finished bowling. Only Allison and Jackson were left to take their respective turns now. At the concession counter, Danny ordered himself a caramel apple. "And whatever she wants," He added, and Stiles muttered that she wanted a soft pretzel with extra cheese.

Once they took their seats at a nearby table, Danny silently observed Stiles as she completely ignored the soft pretzel and picked up the little cup of cheese, dipping her finger straight in and eating it by the scoop. He wrinkled his nose as he munched on the candied apple.

"You're in love with Lydia, aren't you?" Danny bluntly asked, and Stiles choked on her cheese.

"What?" She tried to laugh as she gasped to catch her breath. He was not even remotely convinced, so she dropped the act and gave a shrug. "So?"

"So, it's not good for you," Danny advised her. "Either of you."

"How is it affecting _her?_ " Stiles balked.

"Because you've obviously got her up on some sort of pedestal," Danny explained. "That's pretty selfish, and it's not fair to her."

"Screw off!"

Danny grabbed Stiles' arm to tug her back into the seat and she didn't stand a chance against his strength, almost tipping the thin metal chair over as she fell back into it with an irritable huff. "Listen to me!" Danny commanded. "I'm just trying to help you."

"Why?" Stiles wanted to know, sitting forward with narrowed eyes.

"If you watched a kitten repeatedly hurt itself on purpose, wouldn't you try to stop it?"

Stiles stiffened and started to list all the reasons Danny and his analogies were completely ridiculous, but he barreled over her.

"It's suicide to fall for someone who's straighter than a—"

"Coin slot?" Stiles smirked, and Danny grinned and suppressed a laugh, his eyebrows raised.

"Sure," He agreed before he continued. "Anyways, my point is, you know it's a really bad idea to fall for a straight girl."

"I don't think you understand," Stiles frowned. "It's a little late for all that."

"You think _I_ don't understand what it's like to want someone who's straight?"

Stiles' eyes immediately flashed to Jackson and she looked back at Danny in surprise. "You mean, you and—"

"No!" Danny sneered. "Don't be stupid. Jackson's not my type."

Stiles frowned dubiously but Danny ignored her.

"That doesn't mean there haven't been other guys, though," He added with a knowing glint in his eye, and Stiles felt her shoulders lose some of their tension. "You're just torturing yourself. She's with Jackson. To be honest, I think she loves him."

"But she _deserves_ better!" Stiles finally exclaimed, and Danny shushed her with his hand before he replied just as passionately.

"So do you!"

At that, Stiles' mouth clamped shut and she sat back to blink dumbly at him. Danny frowned at her dumbstruck expression.

"God, you're helpless, aren't you?" Danny sighed.

"Okay, fine. You're probably right about Lydia. But can I ask you a question?"

Danny put a hand up as though he didn't care one way or the other, settling back in his seat to take another bite of his caramel apple.

"Why does Jackson hate me so much? Am I not attractive to straight guys?"

Danny rolled his eyes. "How should _I_ know? Ask your best friend that question."

"Okay, fine, but why is he so mean to me?"

"Who, Jackson? Because he has _eyes_ , Stiles. Anyone who bothers to pay any sort of attention can see that you love his girlfriend."

"He _knows?"_ she gaped.

Danny smirked. "Don't act like you're the first one to ever pant after Lydia. Actually, he's a lot nicer to you about it than he is to anyone else."

She thought she was going to fall out of her seat, her mouth hung open so wide.

"You don't know Jackson and you don't know how their relationship actually works," Danny told her. "She's pretty manipulative. In fact, in a lot of ways she takes advantage of him. But that's not the point. Jackson obviously has his own issues, I won't sit here and deny that, but it works for them." Danny shrugged again. "I don't understand it, but it just _works_ for them. So maybe you should stop wasting your time on her."

"No," Stiles automatically said, crossing her arms stubbornly. "I'll never stop loving her."

Danny sighed and shook his head. "You're an even bigger idiot than I thought you were."


End file.
